Hopelessly Hopeful Till The End
by talonz4ever
Summary: ON HIATUS
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

A set of brilliant blue eyes peeked through a crack in the wall. They scanned from left to right, and then back again. Once they were sure that the coast was clear, they left the crack. At the top of the wall, a blond tuft of hair rose quickly, followed by those blue eyes. They belonged to a young boy, who could be no older than 8 from appearances. The face was one that was easily recognizable; as not many people had twin sets of whisker marks on their face. The eyes that belonged to that young face held fear within them, but also a sense of determination was there.

For this child, today was not going to be a good day. It was October 10th, his birthday in fact. While for many, this would be a day that would cause much joy and fortune; it was quite the opposite for this young child. Though he did not know why the people of the village hated him so much, he did know that today was the worst day of all.

He had found that out the hard way a few years ago, when he had tried to join in the celebrations that also happened that very day. To say that things did not turn out how he expected would be a vast understatement. He barely made it away from the enraged mob with a few scratches and bruises. He knew now that things would have been much worse if hadn't happened close to the main plaza where the Hokage had been.

The old man was one of the few people who truly treated the boy nicely, and for that, he was one of the boy's treasured friends. He would do anything for those few people, but only the ones that proved to be true. He had been fooled before by people pretending to be nice for a little while, just to hurt him more than they would have been able to otherwise. Through those experiences, the boy had withdrawn into himself, erecting a mask of idiocy to hide behind. People had to earn his trust, even if he seemed to be open to everyone.

All this of course, had little to do with his current predicament. He had left his house this morning without looking at the calendar, so that he could go to the academy. When he arrived, he noticed that the doors were closed and no one was outside to welcome the students to the school that morning. It only took him a second to figure out that meant there was no school today, which meant that is was probably a holiday. After a few seconds of more thought, his eyes widened and he clenched his teeth. It was THAT day.

The boy quickly realized the danger that he had invoked by venturing out of the relative safety of his house that day. Running up to the wall that surrounded the academy, he looked for a way to see outside of the academy without showing his telltale hair and whisker marks. He had found the crack in the wall and looked around.

Of course, while his position was safe from the prying eyes of the villagers, it was not safe from the shinobi who could leap from building rooftop to rooftop. One such shinobi was now perched on top of the academy building, looking at the young boy with more contempt in his eyes than should ever be focused at anyone, let alone a young boy.

'Finally, I found the brat. Now he'll pay for what he did to my family…but I shouldn't be the only one to enjoy this.' The shinobi thought to himself quickly, and then pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a quick note on it. With a few handseals and a whisper of kuchiyose no jutsu, a small pigeon appeared in a poof of smoke. The shinobi tied the paper onto the bird's leg and gave it a mental command to give the message to his teammate.

'Now, he should be able to round up some guys to help get rid of this brat once and for all, while I track him if he decides to move.' The shinobi thought, then started chuckling to himself.

Ironically, at the same time that the shinobi on the roof had that thought, the boy pushed himself over the wall at the back of the academy. It was safer for him to exit that way, because the entrance to the academy opened up onto one of the main avenues in the city. The only reason he hadn't been accosted on the way there was that he had left before most people awoke, a trick he had learned to avoid the harassment he would get everyday on his way to school.

Moving quickly into a back alley, he started his trip back to his house. It wasn't very far away, so if he moved quickly and didn't attract too much attention, he might be able to get there in one piece for once. The boy had learned all of the possible routes to his house from nearly everywhere in the city. One might consider that to be paranoid and slightly obsessive compulsive, but as the saying goes 'It's not paranoia when there are really people out to get you.'

From the academy, which was one of the main points of interest to him, there were five routes he could take. Two of which involved him getting into the sewer, and the last time he had done that, he couldn't get the stink out for three days. So he would rather not use the sewer if at all possible.

Deciding to take a route that would get him to his home quickly but sacrificing a little safety, he set out. The boy figured that while this route was in fact riskier in the short term, the safest route, which was the longest, would have the risk compounded by time, since everyone was set to be waking up soon.

Obviously, very few people would consider the boy possible of thinking of things along that line, but while the boy portrayed idiocy, he was in fact very clever. Not a genius by any means, but he had a quick wit, and highly developed self-preservation thought process.

The boy hopped onto a nearby trashcan, and grabbing the ledge of a nearby building, dragged his small frame onto the rooftop. From there he made short work of running and leaping from building to building. The village had become so crowded in the last couple years that the buildings had continued to edge closer and closer to one another, so much so that now even an academy student could run safely on the rooftops. The risky part was that up on the rooftop, while less visible from the villagers on the roads, he became glaringly obvious to any shinobi nearby.

After a few more leaps between buildings, his apartment complex came into sight. That sight gave the boy a little more determination and he quickened his pace a little. It was at this point, that everything the boy had been trying to avoid came crashing down around him.

Hearing the soft whistle of metal slicing through the air, the boy dropped to all fours, just to see a barrage of kunai and shuriken fly through the space his body had just occupied. It seemed that the god of luck was not with him today after all. The boy quickly turned around to try and gauge his chances of escape. What he saw nearly made him whimper in fear. Five shinobi had surrounded him, all wearing flak vests, which signified they were either Chuunin or Jounin; the boy was unable to tell the difference, though it hardly mattered.

"So, demon, are you going to continue to run with your tail tucked between your legs, or are you going to accept your death for the atrocities that you committed to this village?" One of the men asked, with a sneer pasted on his face.

"Wha...What are you talking about?" The boy whimpered out, even as he dropped into a basic defensive stance. It wouldn't really do him much good, but if he was at least able to protect his vital organs, he might make it out of this with his life if nothing else.

"Hmph, still acting the part, eh? That's fine, since you obviously won't repent; we'll have to serve justice to you the hard way" Another man said, with a similar sneer on his face.

The boy hardly knew what hit him, the shinobi moved so fast that he only caught bare glimpses of them. That in itself was quite a feat, though the boy didn't know that, the only thing he knew at that moment was pain, a lot of pain. They had started with bare knuckle punches, beating the boy blue, all of them attacking and getting a punch and kick in. After a few minutes, they were frustrated, the damn brat hadn't cried yet, just taking every hit with a grimace.

One of the men pulled out his kunai and approached the bleeding, bruised, and completely defenseless boy slowly, making sure that he saw his death coming.

'So, this is the end, is it? It's not the way I wanted things to end, but maybe things will be better on the other side.' The boy thought to himself as the corner of his lips twitched slightly upwards.

Seeing the boy smirk at his oncoming death enraged the shinobi who quickly ran forward and plunged it into the boy's stomach. The man then slashed the lodged kunai to the side, ripping the boy's abdomen from one side to the other, directly over a strange tattoo that was on his stomach.

The last thing the boy saw was both surprising and horrifying all at the same time. The shinobi that had taken his life from him was now lying on the ground, the side of his head caved in from a gigantic blow from a sandaled foot. The sandaled foot was connected to a powerful leg covered in green spandex.

As the boy's vision started turning black, a red flash erupted in his vision, before returning to the encroaching darkness. The last thought of the boy reflected on his current state, that his mind was malfunctioning from the body failing on it.

'Those are the biggest eyebrows I've ever seen in my life…'


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Two deep ocean blue eyes cracked open slowly, obviously the bearer of those eyes was both in pain and exhausted. The first thought that ran through the person's mind was 'That is not my ceiling…' The ceiling in question was white washed and in perfect condition. His own ceiling was both yellowed and water-stained with cracks running along it in various locations. Many a night the owner of that ceiling had looked over the cracks in the ceiling, imagining that they were canyons and cliffs in a small world that only he could look at.

Looking around himself, the boy saw gleaming white washed walls as well, and could smell disinfectant in the air. 'Ah…I must be in the hospital again, this ceiling is becoming almost as familiar to me as my own is.'

The boy sat up and stretched his arms above his head, grimacing as he felt bones creak and crack in protest to his actions, along with the searing pain that flashed across his stomach once that started to stretch. His eyes closed in pain; he failed to notice the presence of another person entering the room.

"You know, you probably shouldn't be stretching out your stomach like that, the wound will tear open again if you do that." A warm masculine voice stated. It was a voice that the young boy recognized well.

"Old man, it's good to see you again, but can you really spare the time from your job to see me?"

"Haha, of course I can, Naruto. What kind of Hokage would I be if I didn't check up on one of my injured? …So Naruto, what do you remember about the incident that led you to arrive here in the hospital?"

Naruto sighed as he thought of what to say, of course he remembered everything that had happened to him, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to let the old man know. After all, he could already see the guilt that plagued the man just from his being in the hospital. It would probably make it worse if he knew about the harassment that had happened to have him arrive there.

"Umm, not much old man, I just remember feeling something hit the back of my head, and then I woke up here. Although I guess more than that happened from the condition I'm in."

The Hokage mentally sighed in relief, at least the boy had been unconscious for the majority of the attack; he couldn't help but grimace at the thought of how far the mental damage would go if he had been awake to be tortured like that.

"Naruto, I have to apologize to you. I'm very sorry that this had to happen to you. It's my duty to protect my villagers, and I failed you in that regard." The old man said sadly, bowing his head as he did so.

Naruto saw that this was still hurting the old man, and he didn't want that to happen. The Hokage happened to be one of his precious people, and as such, couldn't be allowed to feel pain if Naruto could prevent it.

"Don't worry about it old man, I'm alright now, and it's not like something small like this can keep me down!" The boy said with a smile on his face, while he pumped his arm out to show his strength.

The old man chuckled at the sight, Naruto would be okay after all; nothing had been permanently damaged in his psyche. This was the elderly Hokage had been worried most about. Of course, this couldn't be allowed to happen again, it had been an oversight for him to not realize that the villagers hate could turn into something physically violent. A mistake that he would not allow to happen again if he could prevent it.

'Now then, what to do so that this will not happen again? I could post an Anbu unit to watch him whenever he travels from the academy to his house, but that would be a major drain on our forces. I suppose having a Jounin shadow him could be enough, but since this last attack was by several Jounin and Chuunin, one Jounin would not be enough to stop the attack. Hmm, the best course would be give Naruto a way of signaling his danger and having him learn to protect himself, that way he could last up until help arrived. This solution would give him the best chance of survival without putting a significant stress on our already stretched too-thin forces. Right, that's what I'll do.'

After the old man finished his internal debate, he looked over Naruto. The boy was too thin, probably malnourishment from his ramen addiction. Though, the old man suspected that was somewhat influenced by the price of ramen being so cheap. The boy truly needed to pack some more muscle on his frame, which would dampen any blows that were inflicted upon him. Of course, the best way to gain muscle is through something constructive, like refining his taijutsu.

That thought obviously led to the memory of exactly who had saved the young boy's life he prior day. Maito Gai was the renowned taijutsu expert in the village, not even Hatake Kakashi, with his sharingan activated could beat Gai in an all out hand to hand fight. Since the man had saved Naruto's life, it was apparent that he held no grudge or irrational fear of the young boy. Whether he would train the boy would be another story however, though he suspected the man would be glad to do so. His decision made, the old man turned his eyes back to Naruto. Would the boy accept the training from an individual as…unique as Gai? That was another thing to consider, but if the old man phrased his question to the boy carefully, he was sure he could pull the right strings and set the boy on the right path. Heaven forbid if Naruto turned into a mini-Gai though, that thought gave the elderly Hokage a headache already.

"Hey Naruto, I have a proposition for you. Though I want you to carefully think about this, as it would benefit you greatly if you accepted."

This caught Naruto's attention. 'A proposition? What on earth could the old man being offering? I should find out, though if the old man is offering it, it can only be something good.'

"What is it old man? You can tell me, it has to be something good if you're offering it." Naruto asked, his eyes gleaming at the thought of something useful from the Hokage.

The Hokage smiled warmly at the boy, it was obvious that the boy held him in high regard and trusted him implicitly. Not necessarily a good thing to have blind faith in another, but it would be highly useful to have respect for your leadership.

"Well, I was thinking that you could use some training to become a better ninja. I have just the man in mind to help you get a leg up on all the competition. After all, if you're going to be the next Hokage, you'll need all the help you can get." The old man said, 'There that should bait him, using his dream to lure him in.'

Naruto didn't even have to think twice about that, if it made him a better ninja then he was all for it. "Hell yeah, old man, let's do it!!"

"Haha, good boy. Alright, you'll have to stay in the hospital for another day or two to heal up completely, the doctors should come by soon to help the process along, but after that you'll be good to go. After you get out, I want to head to this address," at this point the Hokage handed a note to the boy, "and meet an individual named Maito Gai. He will be able to help you on your path, but I want you to promise me you'll give him a chance despite his appearance and personality. He is one of the strongest ninjas in this village, and therefore can help your growth exponentially."

Naruto quirked his eyebrow at that, what could be so odd about the guy that he would refuse training? That just didn't make sense to the young boy. Quickly nodding his head and shooting a genuine smile to the old man, he looked at the address. It was to one of the training areas bordering the outside of the village. He knew most of the training areas well, and he figured he would be able to find this one without too much trouble.

"When should I meet the guy? Is he there at a specific time?"

"Haha, don't worry about that, my boy. You'll probably find him there at anytime that you head over there. He starts training at dawn when he doesn't have missions, and doesn't stop until dusk. I'll hold off on his missions for a while until you've been trained up a bit."

"Thanks again, old man, you have no idea what this means to me!!" The boy shouted as he leapt up to hug the old man. Of course, he had forgotten in his excitement that he been severely injured the day before, and so he grimaced as the pain shot through him while he hugged the elder.

"Alright boy, now get back into bed and rest up, if you don't heal properly, you won't be able to train for a longer amount of time. I have to get back to the mountains of paperwork that my job, and your future job entails, but I'm glad to see that I've made you feel better. I'm expecting great things from you boy, so don't let me down."

The boy snickered at the poor old man's plight until what he said clicked in his mind, 'Oh shit, I didn't think about the paperwork when I wanted the Hokage's job.' His face visibly paled for a second, while the Hokage chuckled, but then he regained his color and his smile lit up the room as he remembered the next part of what the Hokage said to him. He would do it, he would put everything he had into it, so that the old man would not be disappointed by the faith he had put into the boy.

As the Hokage watched on, he smiled, Naruto would be alright, and would grow stronger from his hardships. The man left the room and laughed to himself, he would definitely have to watch through his crystal ball when Naruto met Gai, which would be something that would no doubt be quite hilarious to see.

Naruto watched the old man leave and then looked out through the window by his bed. 'Soon, in just a few days, my journey begins. I hope that this Gai can make me stronger.'

A/N: Wow, I can't believe I already got reviews and alerts already. I just posted this story yesterday. I appreciate the reviews; they help inspire me to write more. In fact, it was checking the reviews this morning and seeing that people liked the story that caused me to go write this chapter up. Hopefully you all like where I'm going with this, but just to let you know, Naruto is not going to be super powered and I'm not going to be ridiculous in his training, seriously, how can a human body possibly have 500 lbs on each limb. They would be torn right out of their sockets. As far as the romance goes, I hate it when people fall in love in like a chapter or two, that's not even realistic. Few people can truly fall in love without a significant amount of time involved. There will be attraction of course, but don't expect them to meet and go 'oh my god, I love you'. Anyways, that's my piece for now, hope that you guys liked this chapter.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto got dressed in a hurry this morning. It had been three long boring days, but he was finally being released with a clean bill of health. He was excited because that meant he could go find his new teacher and start his training. He wondered what kind of teacher this Gai was, and what he specialized in. Whatever it was, he had to be good at it, if his work ethic of training from dawn to dusk was true. Someone who put that much effort into training either sucked very badly at whatever they trained or they were adamant about improving as much as possible. Naruto figured it had to be the latter, since the Hokage had said he was one of the strongest in the village.

Well, he would find out soon enough. Naruto finished up his dressing, and headed to the front office so he could sign the paperwork releasing him from the hospital. After that quick formality was finished, he bolted out the door and set a good jogging pace to get his blood pumping as he headed off to the training area that he had been instructed to go to.

Naruto jogged quickly through the streets, having to weave around the villagers who were walking along the streets. He kept his eyes firmly focused only on the road ahead of him, since he didn't want the villager's glares to dampen his mood before he met with his new teacher. It wouldn't do to show up for training and be all depressed from the trip there. That was not the first impression he wanted to give.

Along the way to the training area, he passed by the academy, it was ironic, because school was in session today, but Naruto was exempted by the Hokage until he could defend himself. What Naruto didn't know, is that he wouldn't be going back to that academy until the class he had been in was ready to graduate. He saw that his class was outside at that point, apparently working on shuriken throwing. There was Kiba, acting like top dog, even though he had only made four out of five in the circle, with no bulls eyes either. Naruto snorted and rolled his eyes at that, it would take more than that to be the top dog in the class. A position that Naruto would have liked to think was his position, but knew that he was on the lower end of the spectrum, with the Uchiha at the top of the pack.

Just before he completely passed by the academy he heard something that piqued his interest, so he stopped for a moment. He had thought that he heard his name being said, by a female no less.

"At least that idiot Naruto isn't here this week, do you think he dropped out?" A female voice asked, though Naruto couldn't recognize the voice off the top of his head.

"Yeah, probably, he always challenged Sasuke-kun, and everyone knows he is an idiot with no talent." Another female voice said, this voice was more familiar to Naruto, he figured it might have been Ino, or one of the other bossy girls in the class.

"Well, I'm just glad he's gone, he always gets in the way when I'm trying to talk to my Sasuke-kun." Another voice added, this one Naruto knew very well, and as such the words cut him pretty deeply. This voice belonged to Haruno Sakura, a pink-haired girl with emerald eyes that he found to be very cute. So cute in fact, that he had a crush on her, though it was no secret to anyone.

Hearing her basically saying that she didn't want him around hurt, a lot. Feeling his eyes water up a bit, Naruto decided that he should leave now, before he had any more pain inflicted by the children inside the academy walls. He knew that he didn't really have any friends there, and if was because he was apparently weak, then he would just have to get stronger, like the Uchiha, who had women throwing themselves at him. With a firm resolve to get stronger and take anything this new teacher could throw at him, Naruto sped up his original pace and made good time towards the training area he was headed to.

Coming around a final corner on the street, he headed onto a road that headed through the woods. This road had several side branches that led to the various training areas, and therefore was the main street that ninja would walk down on their way to training. Naruto passed many a shinobi that looked at him with quirked eyebrows and some hostility. After all, he was only an eight year old little boy, what was he doing in the training areas? Naruto did his best to ignore all of them however and soon found himself at a sign that said 'Training Ground 13'. Double checking the note the Hokage gave him to make sure he hadn't gone to the wrong one, Naruto set off down the dirt path to the training area.

As he walked along the dirt path, he picked up on a sound in the background, a thumping sound that was steadily getting louder as he continued to walk towards the training area. He knew better to run at this point, he might surprise his teacher, and a surprised ninja often killed first, and asked questions later. He wondered briefly about the sound, but couldn't make out exactly was making it, though he figured it had to be Gai doing ...something.

As the tree surrounding him thinned out into a clearing, he got his first sight of his new teacher, along with an explanation for the sound that had been pestering him since he first walked down the dirt path. Gai was a tall man, with black hair and black eyes. His hair was shining brightly in the sun, and Naruto wondered if he put gel in it to make it shine like that. That wasn't what really surprised him though, Gai had a monstrous set of eyebrows, and he wore a bright neon green spandex outfit. This left very little to the imagination of the man's physique. To finish off the look, Gai had a green flak vest, and orange leg warmers. 'Well, at least he likes orange, can't be too bad a guy if he understands the awesomeness that is orange.' Naruto thought to himself.

The sound that had been invading his ears was the sound of flesh meeting wood in a display that left Naruto cringing at the thought of the pain involved. Gai was doing some kind of taijutsu kata that involved three posts with wood handles sticking out of them. He was using those handles and the posts as the brunt of his attack. Of course this impressive display was only in sight for a few seconds before Gai stopped and looked over towards the entrance of the clearing.

"Can I help you, young man?" Gai asked, his attention not entirely focusing, as he was still somewhat exhausted from the rigorous training, he had been doing that kata for the last few hours after all.

"Umm, yes, I'm looking for a Maito Gai; he's supposed to be my new sensei."

"Ah, Naruto-kun, here already? I would have expected you to be laid up at the hospital for a few more days after receiving such grievous wounds."

"Err…hehe…yeah, I heal pretty quickly, ya know."

"Indeed, your power of youth propels you through your injuries, how glorious!!" The man half shouted, while Naruto's eyes bugged out a little. 'So this is why Hokage asked me to give the guy a chance…Well, I'll at least give him the benefit of the doubt, even if he is pretty weird.'

"So…What are we going to do first, Gai-sensei?" Naruto asked, eyes gleaming at the idea of gaining strength.

Gai looked him over for a minute, and agreed with the Hokage's assessment, the boy needed to be more physically fit if he wanted to become a better ninja. Luckily for Naruto, Gai would be able to get him physically fit. Though he likely wouldn't like the process involved.

"Alright, first off, let's do an introduction, then I'll let you warm up while I construct a training routine for you."

"Alright, that sounds fair. Do you want to go first, sensei, or should I?"

"I'll go first, to give you an example of what I want to hear from you. My name is Maito Gai, I am a Jounin, and my eternal rival is a man named Hatake Kakashi. My likes are training, sparring, and beating my rival. My dislikes are people who don't understand the power of youth, and those who look down on other people for unjust reasons. My dreams for the future are to set a good example for the new generation of ninjas, and to train people to harness the power of youth." Gai finished this with a smile that set his teeth gleaming in the sun, while he gave thumbs up with his arm fully extended.

Naruto stared. His jaw had fallen to the ground a little while ago; this person was likely the weirdest person he had ever seen in his life. What was with that pose? Naruto shook his head and cleared his mind of the image so that he could give his introduction, since Gai seemed to be waiting patiently for that.

"Well, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. I am currently an academy student, I don't really have a rival per say, though I dislike the Uchiha bastard always beating me in competitions, so I guess he could be my rival. My likes are ramen; it's the most blessed food in the world!!! Other than that, I like to garden, and people who acknowledge me, they are my precious people. My dislikes are the three minutes it takes to cook ramen, people who dislike orange, and people who seem to hate me for no reason. My dream for the future is to become the Hokage and have everyone acknowledge me!" Naruto said, with a smile on his face at the last part, oh yes, he was looking forward to that day.

"Yes, that is very good Naruto-kun. Your flame is burning brightly. Alright, now to warm up, I want you to run around this clearing twenty times." Gai stated, smiling at his new student.

If Naruto's eyes could bug out any further, they would have. Run around the clearing twenty times? That had to be like the equivalent of three miles!! Did this guy realize he was only eight years old? After picking his jaw off the ground, Naruto sighed, and saluted his new sensei and started running. This guy seemed the type to add more exercise if you didn't do what he wanted, so Naruto just took it in stride. 'Ya know, I bet the Hokage did this as revenge for that prank I played on him last week. But he should have known that the Hokage outfit would look much better in orange!'

What Naruto didn't realize is that at that very moment, the Hokage was watching him through the crystal ball in his office, and had laughed quite a bit at the faces that Naruto had made during the first meeting of sensei and student. 'Ah, Naruto, I know it sounds hard now, but you'll only grow that much quicker if you keep with it. Besides, Gai is someone who can give you much of the attention that you desire so much.'

A/N: There actually weren't any new reviews yet when I wrote this up, but I myself wanted to know where it was going to go in this next chapter, so I had to write it up. Hope you guys enjoy it, and hope you appreciate this updating speed, though I doubt it will keep up.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto woke up to the shrill beeping of his alarm clock. With a groan, he sat up and felt all the bruises over his body reminding him of just how harsh a workout he'd had the day before. Sitting on the bed for a little bit, he thought about how much his life had changed in the last couple months. He had met his new sensei, Gai, five months ago, and it had been hell on his body since then. He knew the man meant well, and he definitely liked the new and improved Naruto that he had become, but sometimes, he wondered if the man was part sadist.

He laughed as he remembered what happened after his warm up on that first day. Gai had called him over and told him the workout routine that would become his life for the next couple months, and what a workout routine it was….

_----------------------Flashback----------------------_

"_Alright Naruto, now that you've finished the laps, how do you feel?" Gai asked, with a bit of a smirk playing on his lips._

_After panting for a few moments, Naruto caught his breath enough to answer the man. "A bit…tired…Gai-sensei…"_

"_That's to be expected from someone as young as you. But I'm actually quite surprised; you show great stamina for someone who hasn't really had much training. Well, that's a boon to our effort to brighten your flame. We won't have to focus as much on stamina as I originally thought." Gai smiled at this, his teeth gleaming in the sun, and Naruto idly wondered if he applied someone special to his teeth as well._

"_Now then, Naruto, I've been watching you during your run and I've figured out a few things. Fact one, you don't have much innate grace. Fact two, your physique is slim, probably from malnourishment and lack of exercise. Fact three, you have impressive stamina. Now then, the first two are not good, but easily remedied, and the third one is a good thing already, but can be improved so that you become a stamina beast. I'd like to see how you fight, to see if you have any natural talent for hand to hand combat, but first, rest up a minute and catch your breath."_

_After about two minutes, Naruto had caught his breath and nodded to Gai. Both took their places across from each other and got into different stances. Gai took a standard stance, standing with one leg facing Naruto, the other behind him. He raised one arm in front of him, with the hand pointed upwards; palm inwards, the other arm to his side, already with fist clenched. (A/N: This is the stance Lee uses whenever he fights if you need a visual) Naruto took a stance that involved both his hands clenched and fists in front of him, his legs spread more than shoulder width apart, with one leg slightly behind the other. Gai nodded as he saw the stance, it wasn't a stance taught in any taijutsu class since it had many flaws, Naruto was leaving the vast majority of his body unprotected._

_Naruto waited a few seconds until his patience ran thin and bolted towards Gai with all the speed he could muster. He drew his right arm back behind him to throw a haymaker at the man, hoping to pound him a little, even though he doubted he would be able to. Gai used his left arm to deflect the blow to the side, so it passed by him harmlessly. He then threw his right hand forward and shoved the defenseless Naruto to the ground._

_Naruto growled as he got up, so maybe going with a haymaker on the first strike had been a bad idea. He would make up for it with a combo this time around. Leaping back towards Gai, he threw his left arm forward in a jab, fully expecting Gai to deflect it again. Which he did, when the fist got close enough. Naruto used the momentum from that deflection to continue spinning and use his right leg to sweep out the man's legs. The plan would have worked, except that he didn't realize what was under those leg warmers Gai wore. As soon as Naruto's shin met with the steel weights on Gai's leg, the boy's eyes shot open in pain and he promptly dropped to the ground clutching his leg._

"_That's enough, Naruto. I think I have a fair idea of your abilities now. Your form is horrible, and it's obvious that you have had no training in hand to hand. However, that move you performed at the end was clever, and would have worked to at least unbalance me if you hadn't been unlucky enough to hit my weights. Don't be discouraged though, Naruto, most hand to hand isn't about form but adaptability. One can't always keep in a rigid stance when fighting; otherwise you lose the unpredictability that can make a dramatic difference in a fight. We will go over your form, and adapt my style to your body, but you have to let your fighting instincts take over sometimes, along with that clever mind of yours."_

"_I understand Gai-sensei. I'll do whatever you say if it helps me improve." Naruto said, looking up to Gai with a new sense of respect, he could have completely owned Naruto in that fight, but he only gauged Naruto's ability. The man truly seemed to want to teach him, and that was something new to Naruto._

"_Now then, here is your basic workout for the day. I want you to do fifty push-ups, fifty sit-ups, and two laps around the village. You have till the end of the day to accomplish this, so if you'd prefer to knock it all out at once or do it piece by piece, as long as you accomplish it by the end of the day, I'll be happy. You'll do this everyday, along with sparring with me, and going over your form. Once this week is over, we'll increase the number of push-ups and sit-ups that you do along with cutting the time to accomplish them down. Soon enough, you should be doing all the push-ups and sit-ups in one go. Now get to it, and let your flame burn brightly with the power of youth!!"_

_----------------------End Flashback-----------------------_

After five months of hard work, he had increased his workload to the point where he could do one hundred push-ups in two minutes, one hundred sit-ups in two minutes, and he could run around the village five times in an hour. All in all, he had grown leaps and bounds in his physical conditioning. It showed to, looking at the boy in the mirror was a body that had not been there those five months ago. He wasn't built like a body-builder, but all his now toned muscles were showing, the fat having been shredded off his body from all the cardio he had been doing, along with the new diet that Gai had put him on. He was still allowed to eat ramen once a week and he would splurge when he did eat it, but other than that, his new meal consisted of vegetables and lean meats like chicken and fish.

Standing up showed another change, his diet of ramen had apparently been stunting his growth from the lack of vitamins and protein. With his new diet, he gained that in loads, so he had been shooting up like a bean stalk since then. He wasn't tall for his age, but he was no longer the shortest around. If he had been able to go back to the academy and measure up to the other students, he would have found that he was now around the same height as the Uchiha.

His fighting abilities had also grown exponentially. With the new strength, flexibility and speed that his new and improved body gave him, he had concentrated on the form. Who knew that he would have so much fun punching a wooden post all day long? He found that it helped relieve him of much of the stress he accumulated each day when the villagers glared at him. Though most of the violent actions stopped when they had seen him walking with Gai down the street a few times, looking up to the man the whole time.

Gai had seen the glares that were directed to his young student and promptly started yelling at the villagers about not diminishing the flames of youth and such things. Naruto had cringed a little at that, and noticed with some small bit of humor that a few of the villagers had actually given him a look of sympathy after Gai returned to his side. Naruto had begun to idolize Gai after that, randomly screaming out about the power of youth.

Or at least, he had, until the Hokage had tied him and sent him to a man named Ibiki for 'corrective training'. He still shivered at the thought, but he had learned that while people would tolerate Gai for eccentric nature, no one wanted a mini-Gai running around. Especially when that mini-Gai had a prankster nature. So while he had toned down the Gai impression, he still used it every now and then, it was a great way of getting people to agree with him, they would agree just to shut him up. A smirk played across Naruto's lips as he thought about that.

Slipping on his clothes, he noticed that they were too snug again. 'Damn it, I keep having to buy new clothes, this is going to kill my allowance…' Naruto thought to himself as his face fell for a bit. Gai had offered him a green spandex suit once, and he had fallen immediately in love with it, though it would have been better in orange. Once he had tried it on back at his house however, his thoughts on the suit changed. It had hugged him uncomfortably in areas that are meant to be comfy and less restrictive.

So Naruto had returned to wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of blue shorts. After two months of hard training however, most of his clothes were simply worn out from the constant abuse that he put them through, and most had several grass stains from his falling down in his spars with Gai. It was then that Naruto had gone shopping for a new wardrobe, something more ninja like that could hold up to the abuse.

After several failed attempts at buying clothes for himself, he had approached his sensei with his plight, hoping the man wouldn't force to him to wear the green suit instead. Gai had seemed to understand the boy however, and brought him to a clothing store that he frequented often. Once inside, Naruto had looked around at the various clothing racks and ran around the store looking at everything, while keeping in mind how much money he had available.

He had found a look that he liked overall. A pair of dark black cargo pants, with a line of burnt orange running down the side, and a pair of black sandals made up the bottom. For the top, he had gone with a dark blue t-shirt, and a green vest that he left unbuttoned. Naruto figured that once he had gained some rank, he could switch out the green cloth vest with a flak vest, to get more protection. He wore the orange stripe for his own identity, since no one would ever be able to convince him that orange was a horrible color. He admitted that it wasn't good for camouflage however, so kept it a minimum instead of going all out orange. The green vest also held some significance; he wore the green to honor his sensei, whom was about as fanatical about green as he was about orange.

Getting dressed in his clothes only took a minute, and after he ate a quick meal and brushed his teeth, he was out the door. He headed off in a fast jog; he had been steadily increasing his speed in all activities, to help speed himself up when it came to combat. He also had another reason to hurry today; Gai had told him that he had some kind of surprise today, though no amount of pestering had gotten an answer out of him as to what it was.

He arrived at the clearing in about ten minutes and looked around, his sensei wasn't there yet, which was odd. He had never beaten Gai there before. Walking over to the wooden fighting posts, Naruto began his daily warm-up, though he would leave the running around the village till after Gai showed up.

Naruto had just finished up his sit-ups when he heard voices approaching down the dirt path that led to the clearing. Recognizing his sensei's voice among the two voices, he relaxed and waited for the man to show up. When he did arrive, Naruto's eyebrows quirked and his eyes widened. Standing next to Gai was a boy that looked to be about a year older than Naruto himself. That wasn't the weird thing though; Gai had been talking about finding a sparring partner closer to Naruto's level for a while now. What surprised Naruto was the way this boy looked, he had glossy black hair, that was tied in a ponytail that went down his back, but his face garnered the most attention. He had a large set of eyebrows, and so considering the similarities between the two males, he made a logical, although incorrect, decision.

"Is that your son or something, Gai-sensei?"

"Haha, no my young pupil, this brightly shining pillar of youth is one who's flame matches your own. Naruto, I'd like to introduce you to my new student, and your new sparring partner, Rock Lee."

A/N: That's right, Lee is in the story now, so the antics between those two will commence shortly. Just to stop any flames that might come at me for this. In this story, Gai takes Lee in as an apprentice much earlier than canon. So no, Gai doesn't have a team yet or anything like that; the ages would be totally off in that situation. Just for reference, Naruto is 8 ½ now, and Lee is 9. The excuse Gai has for taking in Lee as well is that while he wants to help Lee achieve his dream, he also needs a sparring partner for Naruto. After all, if Naruto only battles Gai, who's much bigger than him, then he'll have trouble fighting someone the same size as him. Anyways, hope you like it, and yeah, there will be more flashbacks and time skips up ahead, until we get into the meat and potatoes of the story.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

A set of deep ocean blue eyes focused on a pair of onyx black eyes. They watched each other with such intensity. One of the blue eyes twitched slightly and the black eyes widened and suddenly the body attached threw up his forearm to block the roundhouse kick that the blonde boy with blue eyes had attacked with. Eyes narrowing, the boy with black eyes then grabbed the leg with his other arm and flung the boy to the side, expecting him to roll on the ground a bit disoriented. He was a little disappointed and surprised however when the blonde boy landed neatly on both legs and sprang off the ground like his legs had been springs. His body flung itself back at the boy with black hair and eyes. Going for a quick jab to the stomach, quickly followed by a haymaker from the right, the blonde boy narrowed his eyes as well, since the other boy had blocked both with his forearms.

Naruto was getting annoyed now, he had been fighting with Lee for over half an hour, and neither one had been able to land more than a throw on the other. Deciding to get a little unconventional, Naruto ran forward while dropping his arms to the side, nullifying his guard entirely. Lee saw this coming and his eyebrow quirked until he remembered how the blonde could come up with some insanely clever plans. He strengthened his stance in preparation for the blow, whatever it was. Once Naruto was close, he saw the smirk playing on the boy's lips, 'Oh this can't be good. Come Naruto, show me your flame.'

Naruto came up to Lee and right as he was about to get within kicking range, he let his legs loose, dropping his body to the ground, and sliding underneath the surprised boy. As soon as he got slightly passed the boy, Naruto kicked off the ground with one leg, while throwing the other leg at the boy's back. Lee couldn't turn properly to defend since Naruto was in fact still between his legs at this point, so he ended up getting kicked in the back and eating a face full of dirt as he hit the ground.

"Very good my two youthful students; that will be enough sparring for today. We don't want to diminish your flames by overworking them." Gai said from the background, he had been at the side of the clearing, watching the two boys spar, just in case he would need to intervene if one got injured. It had happened before a few times, when one or the other hadn't been mindful of his strength and hit with too much force on a joint, which was not designed to take such a blow.

Naruto stood up from the ground by kicking his legs up and using the momentum to bring his upper half off the ground, a highly physical move, which he wouldn't have been able to accomplish before all the training that he gone through with Gai. He walked over to Lee and gave him a hand, as the boy was still trying to scrape the dirt off his tongue from his unfortunate meeting with the ground.

"It appears this battle is yours, my eternal rival, but I shall not allow you to progress to far above me, I will train especially hard to make up for this defeat!" Lee shouted, while pumping his arm in the air.

Naruto sighed at the sight, he was still getting used to it. When Lee was first brought to the clearing to be Naruto's sparring partner, he had been a pretty normal boy, who was just very enthusiastic about training to get stronger, so he could prove his dream of becoming a good shinobi that only relies on taijutsu. However, over time with Gai, Lee had begun to change, idolizing the man even more than Naruto did. He had begun shouting about youth and flames and such just like Gai, while hanging off Gai's every word. Naruto shook his head at that, he respected Gai only slightly less than the Hokage himself, but he wasn't about to say that the man wasn't an eccentric. Strong, no doubt, and an insanely accepting man, but eccentric none the less.

It had been over a year since Lee had become his sparring partner, and while he had started below Naruto in skill, Lee had quickly gained ground and had surpassed him for a short while. Of course, Naruto being Naruto, and therefore being extremely competitive simply could not allow that to be the case, and had decided to undergo the training that he had been holding off on for a while now. He had gone to Gai and asked for some weights. That had been an interesting experience to say the least, Gai's eyes had sparkled, his young student had finally understood the beauty that was taijutsu and was taking his training even more seriously than before.

Naruto had started out small, wearing five pounds on each limb. That hadn't been to big a deal when it came to normal activities, and though he would be tired at the end of the day, it didn't hurt him. Of course, when he wore the weights during sparring and his warm-ups, he felt the difference implicitly. He had been so much slower at that point that he doubted he'd ever get back to his original speed. However, for some reason, his body seemed to adapt and heal at a much quicker pace than normal, so he had been able to get used to the weights in no time.

Of course, when he mentioned that to Gai, his eyes had sparkled once more, and with an almost sickening smile, he had added to the weight on his legs. He was now wearing thirty pounds on his each leg, and fifteen pounds on each arm. When he had asked Gai why the weight hadn't been increased more than that, he had been told simply that unless Naruto underwent very specific training to increase the sturdiness of his joints, he wouldn't be able to wear heavier weights; they would rip his arms up, especially the shoulder, which was not a very stable joint to begin with.

Naruto hadn't been very pleased with that answer, and so had asked Gai how else he could get stronger and faster. His stamina had skyrocketed through the training, and Gai had decided he no longer had to focus on that, it was far above the level of a normal Genin, let alone an academy student. So Gai introduced Naruto to the art of weight-lifting. A task in and of itself, since he was wearing weights anyways. Pretty soon, Naruto had noticed the difference, his clothes had begun to get tight again, and he was seriously wondering if maybe he should start buying clothes that were several sizes to big, so he wouldn't go through them so quickly. Naruto was pleased however, that despite getting a bit bigger, his body hadn't undergone a serious transformation. His muscles seemed to get more dense and compact instead of gaining a lot of size. So his already toned muscles had simply become even more so.

Naruto had gained significantly in strength over this time, and now he found himself in an interesting situation. His stamina was excessive at best, and now his strength was far above what it had been before. However his sparring partner had seen where Naruto focused his attention and went another way, he had trained extensively in speed, which as a byproduct had increased his stamina to a point that it was bordering Naruto's own stamina. It had made several interesting fights, to see which was more important, strength or speed.

Both had found that specializing in one field was not the way to go, since Naruto had trouble landing a blow on Lee at that point, while Lee could land several on him. However, Lee's blows didn't hurt that much, since he was all speed, and the dense muscle on Naruto's frame buffered most of the impact. After consulting with Gai, he had simply told them that to truly reach the pinnacle of their youth; they would need to spread their flame in all directions. Naruto had deciphered that to mean that yes, specializing was good, but in order to become great, one would have to expand into all fields.

It was with this in mind that he had started to wonder how to improve the other things in his ninja repertoire. He had dramatically improved his taijutsu during his time with Gai, far above what a normal Genin should be at, but his other studies had suffered for it. Not that he would give up on taijutsu; he had decidedly figured out that he enjoyed the physical competition far more than he would have to just shoot off jutsu at enemies. Despite how cool jutsu usage was.

Figuring that a Hokage was supposed to be a master of all things shinobi though, he had decided to approach Gai and ask about learning other material. After all, it was Lee's dream to show the power of taijutsu, not his own. Gai had been surprisingly understanding when Naruto approached him about expanding into other fields and had told him that unfortunately, he knew few jutsu, but he would ask some of his colleagues if they could assist in the boy's growth. Well, actually, he had said something along the lines of "My glorious student, of course, while I myself can't help you in your springtime growth, I shall ask my honorable comrades to help brighten your flame."

It was not longer after that, that Naruto had been introduced to a few of Gai's friends. His eternal rival, Hatake Kakashi had been introduced first, but had respectfully declined, saying something about getting lost on the road of life, when he wasn't outright ignoring Gai. However, Kurenai, a very attractive older woman with exotic red eyes, had agreed to teach whatever she could to the boy.

That hadn't turned out to be very much though, since Naruto simply seemed to have no talent when it came to genjutsu, which was Kurenai's specialty. He had learned to effectively notice and dispel genjutsu however, and that in and of itself was something. Ironically, Kurenai had been extremely astonished overall, when it seemed that the boy was immune to most genjutsu, the only ones that seemed to affect him were environment changing ones and ones that coaxed his body into sleeping or becoming less aware. The ones that were supposed to terrify or hurt an individual were simply shrugged off by the boy. What the woman didn't know, and Naruto hadn't said anything about, was the reason those didn't affect him was that he had been through much worse than anything she had thought to show him. It would take a much more sadistic person, not the caring woman that Kurenai was, to perform an effective genjutsu against him.

Naruto's ninjutsu still suffered overall however, since he had no teacher to show him anymore jutsu, and he for some reason was unable to learn the jutsu that were considered very simple on the few scrolls that Gai had given him. Gai had begun to get concerned over this lack of growth and had approached the Hokage to ask his opinion on the matter. The Hokage had asked Gai to bring Naruto to him, so that he could take a look at the boy's abilities to see if he could recommend something for him.

"So why are we headed to the Hokage's tower, Gai-sensei? You just said something about brightening my flame of youth."

"Indeed we shall, young Naruto, don't be concerned, your flame will not be diminished, although you shall have to watch out that Lee's flame doesn't surpass your own, rivals should constantly be pushing one another to higher and higher goals after all."

"Right, whatever you say, Gai-sensei." Naruto said with a pout, he hadn't learned anything new from Gai, despite asking again in another way.

A few minutes of walking later, the two entered the tower and were quickly let into the Hokage's audience chamber. Though not without a quick glare from the receptionist, to the young boy. A glare that the boy ignored, while Gai gave a stern look towards the woman that had her freaking out inside her head.

"Hokage-sama, I have brought young Naruto-kun to you, as requested." Gai said, while bowing to show his respect for the older nin.

"Ah, yes, thank you. Now then, Naruto, I hear you're having difficulty performing even the simplest of jutsu, care to explain?"

"Well, old man, I don't know, every time I go through the hand seals, my body feels an enormous pressure from within and the jutsu always fails." Naruto said, his eyes dropping to the ground as he said this, though one couldn't see much of them, since his hair overshadowed his eyes at that point.

"Hmm, Naruto, I'd like you to wait for a moment while I get someone to assist us." The Hokage turned to the intercom system on his desk and pushed a button, "Mari, can you ask one of the Hyuugas to come to my office. I have need of their services."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Came the voice of the secretary through the intercom system.

A few minutes later and a tall man with a bandana over his forehead and white pupil-less eyes knocked on the door and were let through.

"How can I be of service to you Hokage-sama?"

"Ah, yes, Hyuuga-san, can you please activate your byagukan and watch young Naruto-kun as he tries to perform a jutsu, then tell me what happened."

"As you wish Hokage-sama." The man said bowing, and then suddenly the veins around his eyes bulged outwards, and Naruto felt that he was being watched from every direction, a very disconcerting feeling for the young boy.

"Naruto, go ahead and try to perform the jutsu again, don't worry about the man behind you."

"Err…right, alright here goes." Naruto said with a shrug and went through the handseals, feeling the same pressure building up inside of him and watching as the jutsu failed spectacularly once again.

The Hyuuga that had been watching had his eyes wide at the sight that had appeared in his eyes. That was quite a sight to see indeed, and he wasn't entirely sure if he had seen correctly. Shaking his head, he realized the Hokage would want a report to him, so he gathered his thoughts and then looked toward the elder nin.

"Well, Hokage-sama, it appears that Naruto has an enormous chakra reservoir, and that his control is simply not sufficient to stop the flow of that chakra into the jutsu. He simply overpowers the jutsu, every time. Also, there is something else, but I don't think Naruto should be here while I mention this." The Hyuuga said, while looking at Naruto's expression change at this information.

Naruto was confused to say the least, why wouldn't he be allowed to hear whatever came next, when it obviously pertained to him. What kind of secret was the old man keeping from him anyways? He would be sure to find out, even if the old man didn't want him to know. His thoughts revolved around this, even as he left the office and sat in a chair outside.

Inside the chamber, the Hokage went through a few handseals to sound-proof the room, and then nodded to the Hyuuga to continue his explanation. The Hyuuga nodded back then began talking once more. "Well my lord, it seems that while the main problem is that his chakra control is horrible with that amount of power. It also appears that the Kyuubi is interfering as well."

"What do you mean by that, Hyuuga-san?" Gai asked, wanting to know why the Kyuubi would interfere with his student's ability to protect himself.

"While Naruto's chakra is a light blue that is heavily concentrated, at the end of his handseals, a flash of red chakra floods into his system, increasing the power of the jutsu, but obviously that doesn't bode well for his ability to control the chakra."

"I see; that is both a blessing and a curse for the young boy. It seems that even if he does chakra control exercises, he will never be able to master the basic jutsus, but he will have plenty of power for the less control restrictive and more chakra intensive jutsus that are available." The Hokage said, while stroking his goatee in thought. "Gai, I would suggest that you show him some chakra control exercises, and then after he masters those, send him back here again, I will try to find him a suitable teacher who will understand his capabilities and restrictions. He will likely never be able to use precision jutsus and therefore never be able to enter an assassination field, but he will definitely be able to be a fighter capable of using massive area of effect attacks. Hmm, yes that seems the best we can do for Naruto right now, unless he comes to some agreement with the beast within him. That is all, you can both go."

Gai left then, and looked to the eager boy standing up from his seat, now he would explain this to the young boy? That was a conversation he wasn't looking forward to giving.

A/N: So, what do you guys think? I don't want to have Naruto super powered, like most fics where he gains training early in his childhood. Naruto will have better than average taijutsu, less than average genjutsu, and average ninjutsu. But his ninjutsu will all be higher ranked, since he'll be unable to learn the lower ranked ninjutsu, a blessing and a curse, since that means he won't be able to use replacement or henge, let alone the bunshin jutsu. Expect him to use high damage, large area attacks. Not sure if I'll give him Kage Bunshin, because while it fits him perfectly, I'm not sure how I'll work that into the story, he's not the class idiot after all anymore.


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

In a beautiful clearing not far from the village of Konoha, there was a beautiful but very odd sight. The clearing had a small stream that ran through the uneven ground. A small cliff interrupted the path of the stream, causing it to fall the ten feet down till it could regain its bearing and continue forward in a rather aquatic fashion. Several green trees surrounded the stream, and a few had elegant pink flowers which would drop their petals into the water to slowly drift down the stream. All in all, it was a perfectly photogenic location, and would have been the envy of any aspiring artist to paint it.

However at this moment, it was just odd to look into the clearing. For in the clearing was one Uzumaki Naruto. That in and of itself was not entirely too odd, people would come here to visit all the time to see the beauty after all. What made it odd was what Naruto was doing in this clearing. Naruto was currently standing in the waterfall, only, he was standing horizontally on top of the falling water, while he had several leaves attached to different part of his body, and those leaves were spiraling slowly in a clockwise fashion.

Needless to say, this definitely would appear very odd to anyone who didn't know various training methods of ninjas. Although some ninjas might find this to be pretty odd, considering the difficulty of the task. Naruto was practicing his chakra control with a very advanced exercise. Ironically, despite the advanced nature of this chakra control exercise, he was still considered to have only improved his once horrible chakra control, to that of having low Genin chakra control.

The reason his chakra control still suffered was pretty simple really. It's much harder to control a river than a stream, and his chakra was much like that, a very large river, compared to the small streams that most his age had. It would take extensive training solely on chakra control for him to ever have above average control, so that was not the primary focus of this training. It was more for him to simply learn to how to direct that massive flow, not truly controlling it. Much like a dam on a river would eventually break under the stress unless it was continually up kept. But to redirect a river took much less effort, and therefore less stress.

Naruto remembered back when he had gone to see the Hokage with his sensei, it had been just after that, when Gai had left the room, that Naruto had been told of how his ninja career would be focused from then on.

_-------------------------Flashback-------------------------_

"_So Gai-sensei, what was that all about? Why couldn't I be in there to hear the rest? What's going on?" A younger Naruto asked; bouncing on his heels as his curiosity got the better of him._

_Gai looked at him for a long moment, so long in fact that Naruto started to sweat, had he said something wrong? Just as he was about to apologize for…something…Gai cleared his throat._

"_Now then, Naruto. I can't tell you about what went on in there, it was for Hokage's ears only. However, we now have an idea on how you will turn out as a ninja, and where we need to focus your attention in ninjutsu."_

"_Oh, ok…I guess. So, what about the ninjutsu, what are we going to do?"_

"_First off, I'm going to show you a chakra control exercise that you're going to get to work on whenever we aren't training in other things. After you get that one down, I'll show you another. We need to work on your control. However, Naruto, you should be told now. You'll probably never be able to do the jutsu required to graduate the academy." Gai said with a serious look on his face._

_Naruto felt his whole world crashing on itself, he wouldn't be able to graduate the academy? But that was the way to become a ninja! How could he become the Hokage if he didn't even become a ninja? It wasn't fair, that was his dream in life; how could it be taken away like that? Naruto could feel the corner of his eyes tearing up, and was about to break down until Gai noticed the boy's plight._

"_Hey, Naruto, what's wrong?"_

"_But…But, if I can't graduate, I'll never become the Hokage!" The boy sobbed._

"_What? Whoever said that? Look, Naruto, there are exceptions to every rule you know. Several ninja haven't been able to graduate the academy, mostly due to health conditions. Just look at Lee, he won't be able to pass his graduation either when it comes up, since he can't do ninjutsu or genjutsu. However, have you ever seen him get down about that? No. You'll graduate the same way he will, by taking a special exam to make sure that you have Genin capabilities despite them not being the conventional standards."_

"_Al…Alright, Gai-sensei, I believe you. If you say I can do it that way, then that is the way I'll do it!" Naruto shouted out, extending arm out and smiling in the classic 'good guy pose'._

_---------------------End Flashback----------------------_

After that, Gai had told him how the Hokage had determined he would be better off learning jutsu that required heavy amounts of chakra and little control. Jutsu that would basically be perfect for him, since it would take quite a bit for Naruto to ever reach chakra exhaustion, a stigma that kept many from using those jutsu as more than an end all jutsu.

The Hokage had told Gai that with the exception of himself, the only other person who would probably know several of those would be Kakashi. After another shirked attempt at persuading the tall scarecrow to help, Gai had approached the Hokage, appealing for him to either intervene or help Naruto himself. The Sandaime Hokage had been slightly put off that Kakashi wouldn't help train a young student, but simply sighed and told Gai that while he wouldn't be able to help directly with Naruto's growth, he couldn't show favoritism after all, he would do what he could. Doing what he could consisted of giving detailed scrolls on several jutsu that were more up Naruto's alley than the ones he had been studying before.

Several of these scrolls were elemental jutsu, and ranged from mostly D rank to one B rank. He found out that the ranking structure was not entirely based upon possible damage amount, but difficulty and control required. He was still too young to learn any A or S rank jutsu, since those ranks were generally only reached when the damage potential AND risk of the jutsu to the user were great. Not to say the jutsus he were given couldn't be powerful, for example, one of the most basic fire jutsus, which was simply the user breathing out flame, with no control over its direction other than where his head was pointed. The jutsu was normally one that was used to light fires or used in conjunction with a flammable liquid, however, the amount of flame expelled was entirely based on the amount of chakra used. Naruto would probably be able to torch a forest with that jutsu if he put all his chakra into it. He also had provided a few supplementary jutsu, such as an upgraded henge genjutsu, one that had apparently been made by a legendary woman named Tsunade. The advantage of this jutsu was that while the initial cost of chakra to use the technique was greater, it wouldn't drain constantly while in use. Allowing a person to have the henge up for an entire day with no strain. A highly useful skill and one that Naruto put to full effect when he learned the addictive nature of pranking.

Gai had made sure that his ninjutsu studies didn't completely over shadow his taijutsu training, since he had only scratched the surface of the possibilities that lay there. He taught him a chakra exercise that involved moving chakra into his limbs. The advantages of doing this were improved strength and speed, along with increasing the toughness of the skin. With enough chakra, one could conceivably turn their skin into a rock solid surface. Of course, that would also require extensive control, which Naruto did not have, so he kept to the strength and speed aspects mostly. Ironically, Naruto found out that the impressive speed that most ninja use in battle was fueled by pumping chakra into their legs.

Naruto had unfortunately fallen behind Lee once again in taijutsu when Gai had taught the young boy how to open his celestial gates. Naruto would have asked Gai to teach him that as well, but decided that in order to be fair to Lee; he couldn't hog Gai all to himself. Naruto could turn to his other studies, to continue to progress as a shinobi, Lee could only concentrate further in taijutsu. So with some regret, he let Lee pass ahead of him, if only in that field. It wasn't a huge loss, since his ninjutsu training was now taking a significant portion of his time, but he still felt the loss when he saw how close Gai and Lee were becoming.

Naruto fully believed Gai about the alternate testing, though the man had refused to tell him any more than that on the subject. This infuriated the young blonde boy to no small end. However, even though Naruto believed Gai, he wanted to make sure that if something happened he'd be able to adapt, and possibly pass the original exam.

He had started researching the exam soon after. It consisted of a written exam, a practical exercise, and a jutsu demonstration. The written exam was no doubt going to give him nothing short of a headache, since he hadn't been studying history in his spare time, and something told him that he didn't want to ask Gai to give him lessons on it. The practical would be a breeze for the boy, it consisted of kunai and shuriken throwing and a taijutsu spar with a teacher. The jutsu demonstration would be the truly tricky part. He had a henge variant if that was the test given, but he couldn't master replacement or bunshin at all. He would have to ask about learning some kind of alternatives for those in the near future. If there had been nothing else he had learned so far in his training, is that there were many possible ways of achieving the same result. If he wanted to graduate the old fashioned way, it was possible, he would just have to use more chakra extensive jutsu than all the other kids.

It was with this in mind that he tracked down the ever-elusive copycat nin, Kakashi. Hoping that perhaps he would be able to persuade the man to train him. He figured maybe Gai had been too loud and boisterous when asking the man, as he was wont to do. Finding the man had been a task in and of itself, since it almost seemed like every time he had a lead where to find the man, based on Gai's description, the man would mysteriously disappear just before he arrived.

It was only after a full day of chasing the man around Konoha that he ended up in a clearing that had a large monument in it. Standing by the monument, looking down at the names etched there, was his target. The man seemed sad for some reason, and he didn't react to Naruto's presence. Naruto had begun to announce himself to the man, to not surprise the older nin when he was cut off by Kakashi turning around and looking square at him.

"Alright brat, you've been following me around all day. What do you want?"

"Wait, you mean you've known I been following you, and yet you continued to avoid me!?" Naruto asked, his disbelief at the man growing.

"Uh, yeah? Look kid, I have better things to do than investigate every person following me around. I'm pretty popular, ya know." The silver haired man stated, scratching his head with his left hand.

Naruto glared at him for a moment before sighing, and tried to look as respectful as possible. "Kakashi-sempai, I would like to request that you assist in my ninjutsu training. Gai-sensei had told me that I need to branch out, since specializing causes stagnation, and you came highly recommended from both Gai-sensei and Hokage-sama."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at this behavior, he had always heard the brat was a rude bundle of energy, and his training under Gai had given him only a worse opinion on the boy's probable personality. However, this Naruto was being respectful, and appealing to him for assistance instead of demanding help, which is what he had been expecting. Overall, it was … refreshing. He had been surprised by the boy, and that was not something that happened in his life too often nowadays. Kakashi rubbed his chin in thought, it wouldn't be too horrible to teach the brat a few things really, especially if he was going to be respectful. Not to mention it would get Gai off his back for at least a few weeks, and that was always a good thing. Well, he could always call it off if the brat bugged him. Shrugging his shoulders, Kakashi looked at Naruto and nodded his head, he'd do it.

"Alright, kid, what do you want to learn?"

"Well, I can't do the jutsu to graduate the academy, I simply have too much chakra and not enough control, though I am working on that. I was hoping there were some alternatives for bunshin and replacement."

"Hmm, interesting, alright brat. First I'm going to teach you a very useful maneuver. It allows you to form solid bunshins that can attack and take attacks. These are the handseals for an earth bunshin."

A/N: So, what do you guys think? I've been playing with this idea for a while, that there must be an alternative way to graduate, otherwise how did Lee graduate? If this actually gets explained somewhere, I apologize for my ignorance, but I don't think the canon story ever explained that. I liked the idea one of the reviewers gave, about finding alternatives for the original jutsu. I haven't decided if he's going to graduate the old fashioned way (which would probably end up with him totally blowing away all competition) or the alternative route, which would end up with him receiving a lower ranking. I was asked in a review whether there will be a major time skip or if I'm going to keep the characters very young. Expect to have time skips up until the point in which Naruto graduates most likely. I will probably slow time down when I introduce Tenten, since they won't have ample time to get to know one another once Naruto starts taking missions. Well, that's all for now, I hope you guys like it, and I'm waiting for the reviews to tell me one way or the other.


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto's eyes cracked open and he sighed at the sight that greeted his eyes. Whitewashed walls and a whitewashed ceiling. The smell of disinfectant permeating in the air. Yes, once again, Naruto was in the hospital. He started to wonder idly if they had a room reserved for him, because this looked exactly like the same room he was in last time. He wouldn't doubt if they had set aside a specific room, so that he couldn't 'contaminate' the other rooms and other current inhabitants.

Naruto brought a hand up to his eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them, vaguely trying to remember exactly why he was in the hospital anyways. 'Let's see, the last thing I remember was being at training, like any other day. What was I doing, specifically though? Training has rarely put me in the hospital before.' Naruto laughed at that thought, his healing capabilities truly were astounding.

He'd gotten a few broken bones before while sparring with Lee. Gai had freaked out over it, but by the time he had gotten to the hospital, Naruto wasn't in pain anymore, actually his arm had just been really warm at that point. When the medic had checked out his arm, he had glared at the two, not thinking it was funny that he had been pulled away from other sick people to check out a nearly healed broken bone. When he had said as much to the two, Gai had took it in stride, while Naruto's eyes had bugged out. After that, Naruto had wondered about that healing ability, was it some kind of bloodline or something? That just wasn't normal after all.

When he had asked Gai though, the man got really distant, and told Naruto not to mention it to anyone else. That's all he could get out of the man. He was a truly nice guy, and accepting above all others, but sometimes, his stubborn nature infuriated Naruto. Shrugging off as probably some bloodline that had a dark history, since the people in the village did seem to hate him after all. Naruto had never asked about that, he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with his current predicament, so Naruto reigned in his errant thoughts and got back to the mystery at hand. 'Right, I was training with hmm, ah right, I was doing ninjutsu training with Kakashi and… oh' Naruto remembered what had happened now, and was chagrined to admit that Kakashi had been the one to save his life no doubt when he had messed up with a jutsu.

He had been working on a replacement method with Kakashi who had suggested a few things, but was leaving it up to Naruto to pick out the method he would use. One of those suggestions was to use the Shunshin, a jutsu that allowed the user to transport to another location. Highly useful, but rarely ever used in combat because of the time involved in the jutsu, it took a few seconds to use, and was a chakra heavy move, so it could easily be tracked. Most ninja simply used the jutsu to get around town quickly. It had a limit of distance, so it wasn't often used outside of the village.

Naruto had eventually decided that unless something could be figured out for reducing the time cost of the move, the combat effectiveness of the move would be nil, even if he could probably use it to pass the exam anyway. Ironically, there was such a move that took the Shunshin and reduced the time cost, but no one knew how to use it anymore. It was the most famous move of the Yondaime Hokage, the Hiraishin, but that wasn't even a possibility, so Naruto shrugged it off. He had eventually decided to use a conjunction of two moves in order to set up a combat effective method of replacement.

He would use the Headhunter no jutsu, a jutsu that allowed the user to sink into the ground, and then traverse through the dirt quickly. It had its advantages, and disadvantages like any other jutsu. It wasn't chakra heavy, so it could be used pretty often, but while a person could use it to sink into the ground regardless of the soil around, once they were under the ground, they wouldn't be able to move anywhere but back upwards if the ground was solid stone.

Naruto would form an earth bunshin as soon as he sunk into the ground, so that he had a replacement to take the hit. This surprisingly, could take a few hits before crumbling into dust. Kakashi had explained that while this move was highly effective over most variants of clones, it did have its own drawbacks as well. The bunshin took more chakra to form than almost any other bunshin; the only exception being a clone technique called Kage Bunshin no jutsu, which split the user's chakra evenly. The earth variant took less chakra, and gained the impressive ability to take a few hits. However, unlike the Kage Bunshin, and a few other elemental based bunshin, this bunshin was unable to use chakra, so couldn't use any jutsu to supplement its fighting capabilities.

This was a highly combat effective way of replacing, since even if he had sunk into stone, the bunshin could draw the fighter off for a few seconds while Naruto came back to the surface. The main problem that Naruto was having was timing. Both moves took a little time to activate, though that problem would go away as Naruto used the abilities more and more.

So whenever he had a spare chance in training, he would go over and over the use. He would like to be able to pull both off instantaneously, so that the person Naruto was fighting wouldn't likely even notice the switch. It was during one such training event that Naruto had found a flaw in the technique. He had been running around, pulling off the maneuver. Since he likely wouldn't often have the chance to replace himself while standing still and relaxed.

Naruto had sunk into the ground, and started to move to his left, to surprise Kakashi, who had been supervising the training. What he hadn't expected what to suddenly find himself falling, the earth he had been traveling through had opened into the roof of an underground cavern. He had fallen about twenty feet, and it was likely that the only thing that had saved his life was that he had channeled chakra into his body to brace for the impact. He would really have to thank Gai later for teaching him how to do that.

Naruto couldn't remember anything after impacting with the ground and it was no doubt that Kakashi had gone to search for him after he didn't immediately emerge back from the ground. While Naruto wasn't entirely sure if he would have died from the injuries he had sustained in the fall, he would still give the man the credit he deserved in saving his life.

The flaw in the technique would need to be addressed however. The jutsu didn't rely on sight, but chakra sensing, once the user was underground. The user would move towards their victim by tracking the chakra signature above them. The user would have to somewhat blindly move through the ground, as Naruto knew all too well, he had run into several stone slabs underground before, and had gotten used to keeping hand in front of him to try and stop that from happening again. Unfortunately, he had been moving too fast to account for his hand feeling nothing at all ahead of him. By the time he had noticed, he was already in the air above the ground in that underground cavern. Naruto would not allow to this hiccup to stop him however, there was likely a way to see what was ahead of him in the ground, he would just have to learn it and implement it into his replacement strategy. Not to mention, if there was such a technique, he could stop getting the headache of having a stone pass above his hand just to smack into his head.

Having at least figured out the reason for his newest enlistment into the hospital care list, he laid his head back down and decided to get some shut eye until someone came to get him. Apparently, his luck was not quite there today, because at that very moment, a person had run into his room, waking the boy up. However, this person likely had little to do with him, since they had yet to even spare a glance at the now curious young boy.

A young girl, who looked to be only just a bit older than Naruto himself, had closed the door in a hurry, then glanced left, right, and back again, the whole time sweating and with a scared expression on her face. Naruto thought it was cute, but wondered what she was trying to hide from, since that was obviously what she was looking for, a hiding spot. The young girl's face lit up as her chocolate eyes fell upon the blond haired boy sitting up in his bed.

Without any warning whatsoever, the young girl leaped onto his bed, and had quickly hidden underneath his blanket, positioning her body as close to his own as possible to minimize the increased mass that the blanket would show.

"Ummm…"

"Shh, please, just ignore me for a minute, my father is pissed off and looking for me, just let me hide here for a minute."

"Uh, ok…" Naruto scratched his head. He had a blush on his face, since the closest he had even gotten to a girl before this was Sakura's punches to his head.

Just then, his door opened up with a blast, and the young boy's bugged out at the sight. Standing in the door frame was probably the most intimidating man the boy had ever seen in his life. The man wore a set of overalls, but had let the upper half loose, so that it hung at his waist. His upper body was bare to the world to see. He had a chiseled body that any bodybuilder would be proud of. It had scars running all over the place, and he had a deep olive colored tan. The man had grey hair and a long grey beard that was braided as it went down his chest. The man's chocolate brown eyes zoned in on Naruto's shocked face, and walked towards the bed where he was laying.

Naruto was now deathly afraid, this man looked like he could tear him limb from limb, and his daughter was now lying underneath the sheets. Even if he had explained how he had not played any part in this, he would still be obliterated by the older man. Naruto's pale face and quivering lip gave the old man the wrong impression though.

"Sorry, brat, didn't mean to scare you when I broke into your room like that. Have you seen my wayward daughter. She's a little older than you, brown hair and brown eyes. About this tall," at this the man's hand rose from his side to show the height of his daughter, "and tan skin like my own?"

"Uh…No, sorry old man, I haven't seen anyone like that." Naruto lied through his teeth, hoping that his lying skills were better than he had originally thought, since otherwise, a relatively simple hospital stay would end up leading to his death.

The old man looked him over once, then again, shook his head, and started walking away, "Well, if you see her, let her know that her mom will be finding out about her playing around in the smithery." At this, Naruto felt the young girl's body lying next to him, tense up in fear.

"Alright, old man. Good luck in finding her." Naruto said, while waving. Once the old man was out of sight, he let loose a breath he hadn't realize he'd been holding, and flopped back down on the bed. "You can get up now, he's gone."

The young girl quickly sat up and Naruto got to get a good look at her once again. Though he noted with some humor, that she was now blushing nearly as badly as he had been before the old man had drained the color in his face. She seemed to want to look anywhere but at Naruto, and was doing a horrible job at doing so.

"Thank you, you have no idea what kind of trouble I'd be in if he had found me here."

"Trouble you'd be in?" Naruto laughed aloud at that, earning an odd look from the girl. "Please, he'd be too busy killing me for laying in the same bed as his daughter to even worry about you sneaking into some smithery."

The girls eyes widened at that, she hadn't even considered the effect that might have caused. "Oh, uh…sorry about that." She hesitantly smiled at the boy.

"No problem..."

"Tenten, my name is Tenten."

"Ah, Naruto. So, why were you there if you're obviously not allowed to be?"

"Hmph, my father says it's unbecoming of a young lady like me to be down in the smithery. But he doesn't understand, I love it down there. The heat of the forge, the sparks flying off whatever my dad is working on at the moment, and the smell of the freshly melted steel. It's just…I'm comfortable there." She looked a little sheepish at this point, realizing that some boy probably wouldn't understand that.

"Ah, well, I haven't been in a smithery myself, but it sounds pretty cool." She looked up at this point. "And if it's where you're most comfortable, then of course you'd like to be there more often. Have you said something along these lines to your father? I'm sure he'd understand." Naruto wasn't actually sure about that, having no experience with fathers, but he figured that if he was a father someday, he'd try to understand his children.

Of course, that thought came at a very bad time, considering he currently had a young girl in bed with him, even if she wasn't lying next to him anymore. The blush that rose up on his cheeks was very prominent, and the young girl quirked her eyebrow at that, why was he blushing now? What was he thinking about? Leaving that mystery for later, the girl asked the next thing on her mind.

"So…why are you in the hospital? You don't seem sick."

"Oh, hehe, well, a training accident actually. Haha." Naruto scratched his head nervously.

"You're training to be a ninja? That's cool, so am I." The girl said proudly, grinning the whole time. "I don't think I've seen you at the academy though."

"Oh, I stopped going there a while ago, I'm receiving personal training from two Jounin." Naruto boasted, it was one of the few things he could boast about, and he hadn't had a chance to boast to a girl before that wasn't trying to hit him over the top of his head.

"Whoa, you must be pretty strong then! You want to spar sometime?"

"Uh, sure, once I get out of the hospital."

"Right, that would help." The girl laughed at that. "Well, I got to go, I don't want my dad to come back here and see me like this."

"Yeah, so, where can I find you for that spar?" Naruto blushed at this, it was almost like asking her out in his mind.

"Oh, just drop by the village weapon shop sometime, I usually run the counter there, since my family owns the store."

"Alright, see you then."

"Yeah, see ya." The girl waved as she poked her head out of the room, looked left then right, and took off down the hallway.

"Weird girl…but she was cute."

A/N: Yay, finally introduced Tenten! Did you guys see that one coming? I had originally planned on introducing them when Gai got his team, but figured that this way was much more humorous, and would give me plenty of opportunities to play with innuendo later on in the story. Just to give you a heads up, Naruto is 10 now. I didn't really say anything in the story to correlate the timeline this chapter. A few more chapters until we jump to graduation, so look forward to it. Next chapter will probably be mostly interaction between Naruto and Tenten. I hope you guys don't misunderstand though, they don't like each other romantically at this point. The blushing and stuff was because of the circumstances. Sorry about the longer update time, work got in the way of my writing. Stupid job.


	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto counted the seconds by as the receptionist looked over his papers. Seriously, what took so long to check to see that the doctor had in fact signed his release form? After counting two minutes of sitting there while she idly flipped through the papers, Naruto was at the cracking point, his fingers were starting to curl into fists and his jaw was clenched tight. One might be wondering why Naruto seemed to be so agitated by the simple process, despite having gone through it without troubles before. Well, it wouldn't have bothered him, except that he had been kept in the hospital three days after he had woken up. Three days! He had been in top health a few hours after he woken up. He could swear that some of his doctors had a sadistic streak.

The other reason for his impatience was simple really; he had a chance to spar with someone new for once. While he enjoyed sparring with Lee, as he would often come up with new and exciting ways to fight with the boy, the problem was that Lee had the same move set each spar. Mind you, it was a move set that was devastating and Naruto had lost more often than he would like to admit. Nonetheless, having a chance to battle against an unknown enemy, and possibly having another gauge for his strength was very enticing to the young boy. He was practically vibrating with excitement.

After took what seemed to be forever, the receptionist looked over to the young boy and told him that he could leave. Her eyebrows then quirked upwards when the boy shot off in an impressive display of speed as he launched through the doors and leapt upwards, grabbing onto the roof of a nearby low building. After pulling himself up, he turned towards the direction he knew the armory to be located. He hadn't himself been there before, as he tried to avoid going into any stores. He'd had Gai picking up his equipment for him. It seemed a selfish thing to do, but the man had insisted that he be allowed to shop for the boy after the clothing incident that had happened earlier in their time together. That and the fact that it gave the man a chance to buy new weights for the boys. The man truly could be sadistic at times.

As the boy raced over the rooftops he got to thinking about the upcoming spar. What kind of techniques would she use? Would she be a close range fighter or a long range fighter? If she had any cool techniques, would she be willing to teach him? Naruto didn't know the answers to his many questions, but that was alright, he would find out soon enough. Deciding to try and get a good guesstimate of her abilities, he thought about what very little he knew about her.

He knew that she apparently liked being in a smithery, and her father appeared to be the master blacksmith in the town. That led to the belief that she was probably somewhat more likely to use weapons. He had also noted that she had a very firm body, muscles taut from training, though not overly big. He blushed at that, he had only noticed her firm body when she had been pushing against his body in order to avoid detection from her father. Her firm body however pointed towards some training in hand to hand combat, though not stressed. Otherwise her muscles would have been more pronounced, not just toned.

As for her jutsu capabilities, that was impossible for the young boy to discern. He supposed that she didn't rely entirely on them, since her body showed physical training, but that could just mean she was trying to be a balanced shinobi, much like himself. Once again, he was left wondering, but then, that was what had provided the excitement to spar in and of itself. His thoughts resolved to just find out during the battle, since she didn't exactly have a better grasp of his abilities than he did hers.

Naruto's thoughts had been distracting him during his run, and now that he was back in focus, he noticed that he was very nearly at the store. If he had continued to think to himself, he probably would have passed the shop, and that would have just been embarrassing. Stopping on the building overlooking the store, he took in it's layout. The store was two stories, though it looked from the windows that were open that the second story was in fact where the family lived. While the downstairs portion was the store itself, with all the weapons lying therein, apt for grabbing up by the family if they needed to protect themselves at night. Behind the store was a small patch of bare dirt, probably worn that way by training of the young kunoichi there. At the far end of the land was another building, though if the plume of dark smoke coming from the wide chimney was any indication, Naruto figured that had to be the infamous smithery.

Naruto hopped down onto the street after his inspection and opened up the door to let himself into the store, hoping that he wouldn't be thrown out before he at least talked to Tenten about their spar. As soon as he walked in, Naruto's eyes widened and started shining. 'So many sharp and pointy things!' Was the only thing the young boy's dazed mind could come up with when he was assaulted by the sight of the multitudes of weapons that were on racks, on the walls, and some even hanging from the ceiling. He wasn't entirely sure if he had stepped into his wildest dream, or his greatest nightmare.

The boy started idly wandering down one of the hallways, looking left and right with amazement clearly plastered all over his face. He had never really looked into using weapons that much, figuring that they were an item that could be lost or damaged. While his body was something that couldn't be lost, and well, it could be damaged, but that was part of the shinobi life. However, suddenly looking at the mass of deadly looking weaponry that adorned the walls, he couldn't help but feel that he had overlooked another great aspect of weapons in general. They were fucking intimidating! He would definitely have to reconsider his thoughts there and possibly play with the idea of choosing a weapon to add to his arsenal of fighting capabilities.

As he finished walking down the aisle way, he located the register. Ironically, he had passed it near the beginning of his amazement. The register was located right next to the entrance, so that a person couldn't run in and grab a weapon without the person behind the counter at least getting some idea of the identity of the thief, if not being able to outright stop them. Luckily for Naruto's ego, it seemed that no one was at the register at the moment, so he could save face by not having to admit that he had been completely astounded by the room.

Walking up to the counter, he saw that there was a little bell to ring, and he was reaching for it when the door behind the counter opened up and the terrifying old man that he had been introduced to before walked out from the back room. Naruto's hand paused, and he could curse his luck. He had been hoping that Tenten would be at the register, not her father. This was likely to end up with him having to come up with something quick.

"Can I help you, brat?" The old man asked, while taking a seat behind the counter.

Naruto's eye twitched at the comment, he truly hated being called a brat. Although unlike the majority of the time when he was called a brat, there was no hostility or hidden malice in the word, more used as the man's common way of referring to children.

"Uh…yeah, is Tenten-san around here somewhere?" The boy asked, making sure to say the girls name with an appropriate suffix attached.

"Hmm? I thought you didn't know my daughter. Or were you lying to me at the hospital?" The old man leaned over the counter, and put his face near the now truly terrified boy.

"Umm…oh, uh, no, I ran into her a little after you left. That's all."

"Well, what do want her for, boy?" The man's eyes narrowed, and Naruto realized just how protective this father really was. He was really standing on thin ice here, and there was already a crack running down the length of it.

"Oh, well, she said we could have a spar sometime after I got out of the hospital, and I was hoping she was available for it." The boy said, thankful that he didn't have to lie about that part.

The man's eyes judged him for a moment, and finding no lie in the statement, responded, "Hmph, well, she's in the back moving boxes for me. Wait a moment while I go fetch her."

Naruto sighed with a relief and released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding when the man exited back out the door he had arrived through. That was the second time the man had gotten to Naruto, and he wondered idly if he would ever be able to talk to the man without seizing up in irrational fear. Apparently, fathers were just scary if you wanted to talk to their little girl.

After a few moments, he heard some voices talking in the other room, though he couldn't hear what they were saying. He was able to make out the old man's voice, and a female voice, which he remembered was Tenten's voice. It sounded like Tenten was surprised, then excited as she talked with her father. After a loud "Thanks, pop." The conversation ended, and a few seconds later the young girl entered the main store.

"Good timing, Naruto, my father just let me get out of work so that I can spar with you. Considering how many boxes I had left, I really do owe you."

"Hehe, don't worry about it, so where do you want to do this?" The boy embarrassedly scratched the back of his head.

"Oh, well, my normal training area is just behind the store, unless you're planning on using any moves that would massively change the landscape or something."

"Oh no, that's fine I suppose."

"Right, well, follow me then." The girl opened up a partition in the counter and let Naruto in behind it.

He followed her through the doorway behind the counter and his eyes bugged out when he saw the amount of boxes that were in the backroom. It was nearly enough to fill a warehouse, at least in his mind. Several stacks of boxes were still wrapped up, and Naruto figured those to be the ones that Tenten was going to be going through before he arrived. Off to the side, he noticed a stairway that headed up to the second story and figured that was the entrance to the family's household portion of the building.

Following the young girl out the back door, he got a good look at the training area from the ground level, and noticed a lot of things he hadn't noticed from the rooftop nearby. For one, there were a lot of thin gouges in the ground, and several small craters. He also noticed lots of tiny targets painted on painted all over the places. They were painted with colors just barely off from whatever they were on, so that they'd be harder to spot and focus on. There also seemed to be wooden dummy with several targets painted brightly on it. The target spots seemed to be most of the vital locations, and each one had several kunai or shuriken embedded into them.

One location caused Naruto to pause and suddenly reconsider the spar, since he really didn't want to end up at the hospital to remove any sharp, pointy things located in that particular area. Naruto must have whimpered slightly, because Tenten had turned and quirked an eyebrow at the boy who seemed to be crossing his legs and holding a hand over his sensitive areas as he looked at the dummy. When she realized why he was acting like that, she broke out in a very melodic laugh that caught the boy's attention.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to try and make you a eunuch during a friendly spar. My father is the one that emphasizes my learning how to strike that area of the male anatomy." Once again Naruto decided that the old man was a very, very protective father, and decided not to do anything at all that could ever be construed incorrectly and end with his life either being forfeit or horribly changed.

"R…Right. Well, let's start shall we?" The boy said, while walking over to a spot a few paces away from the girl and adopting a guarded but adaptable stance.

"Yeah, let's go." The girl nodded and dropped her hands down towards the weapon pouches on her legs.

Both waited for the other to move at first, until Naruto got fed up with that, and shot forward that shocked the girl. Tenten had not been expecting to be facing that kind of speed, but grinned to herself as this would finally provide a chance for her to test her accuracy on a fast moving target. She reached down into her left pouch retrieving a handful of shuriken to throw off en masse at the oncoming blur that was Naruto.

Naruto was thrown off pace when he suddenly had several shiny pieces of metal flying through the air that would have pierced him if he hadn't jumped into the air. This was the first time he had someone take aim accurately at him when he was moving at full tilt. Once he was in the air, things just got worse, as he saw the grin on the girl's face and realized she had wanted him to go to the air. Seeing her retrieve two handfuls of shuriken, Naruto realized the error in going to the air against an opponent like her, and quickly starting making handseals.

With a flick of her wrist, Tenten shot off both sets of shuriken, one coming straight towards him, while the other swung at an arc to attack him if he were somehow able to stop the ones in front of him.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu." The boy screamed out and blew a moderately sized fireball in front of him, he didn't want to kill the girl after all.

Of course, he hadn't noticed the side arc shot shuriken and as when he saw them coming in, he had no time to use any techniques to thwart the attack. Thinking quickly, the boy flooded his left side with chakra, hoping to minimize the damage. He was quite surprised when he did so, because right before the sharp metal could pierce his skin, he felt a boost in the chakra fortifying the skin. This hadn't happened before, and it was weird time to learn something new about his body.

What truly surprised him though, was that the shuriken hit his skin, and merely bounced back off, each leaving a scratch instead of a deep gouge in his skin. Naruto shook off the surprise, he'd worry about it later, like when he didn't have to worry about more shuriken flying at him. He looked back to his opponent to find her gawking at his side much like he had been earlier. Taking this as a good opportunity for himself, Naruto landed on the ground already ready to blast off at full tilt. He closed the gap instantly, and was already halfway into punch before the dazed girl had the wits about her to try and block it.

However, since she was late in the attempt, not entirely focused, and just physically weaker than Naruto overall, her attempt to block was completely blown through and her stomach almost retched when Naruto placed his fist deeply into it. Her body had been lifted off the ground with the punch and as she fell back, she decided right there and then to not let him get close to her again in this battle. He obviously outclassed her in hand to hand, and at least had one ranged jutsu to combat hers.

Once she landed, Tenten frowned, he also had stopped her last attack with a burst of chakra. Weird as that was, it wasn't unheard of really. She had heard of something similar being used by the Hyuuga, but this boy didn't look like a Hyuuga, nor had the technique he used seem to be there techniques.

Deciding that she couldn't afford to play nice in this battle, she pulled out two scrolls from her back pocket. She would have to go all out of the boy, and hope he would survive but lose nonetheless. She hadn't yet developed a move using these scrolls, but she had packed them full of weaponry. Taking each scroll and unwinding them as she used a nearby tree to catapult her high into the air, she slapped different kanji symbols to have different weaponry that she fired off.

Naruto looked up into the air and saw a huge torrent of weaponry raining down towards him. 'Oh crap.' The boy thought before reflexively going through the seals for the Headhunter jutsu, not even bothering to form an earth bunshin since it wouldn't be able to stand up to that kind of assault. He quickly locked onto Tenten's chakra signature and moved towards her location as he heard a thunderous roar from the ground as multitudes of weaponry embedded into the soft dirt.

Tenten landed outside the drop zone of her weaponry, and looked a little anxious as her eyes roamed over the spot where she had seen the blonde boy last. She was hoping to find him there, maybe a little injured, and unable to continue. She hoped that she hadn't killed him, but she was taking his ability to apparently reflect weapons into account. What she hadn't expected, and what she was seeing, was her weapons all embedded into the ground, with no sign of the boy anywhere around her.

"Did he use Kawarimi or something?" She mumbled as she looked around for him.

Suddenly, two hands grasped at her ankles, and she could only gasp before her body was pulled underground, with just her head still showing.

"Well, unless you know how to get out of there, it's my win." Came a voice from behind her, and although she couldn't twist around to see it, she was sure that Naruto had a grin on his face at her predicament.

With a heavy sigh, she admitted it. She had lost, badly, to the boy. He didn't seem that he had gone all out, and wasn't even breathing hard. He had owned her in this battle. Just how strong was he?

"No, you win. I can't escape from this. Now get me out of the damn ground."

"Haha, right." The boy pulled her up, and helped her brush some of the dirt off her back.

"I'm impressed, ya know, you really are something. Are you sure you aren't a Genin already?" She asked, slightly miffed at how badly she had been beaten.

"Well, I'm sure that I haven't taken the test yet, and I've younger than you, ya know."

"That doesn't make me feel better." Tenten clenched her teeth together.

"You're right, how about I teach you that last move then? So that you'll be able to get out of it next time."

A/N: Alright, to sum up the reviews. Kyuubi is more active in this, interfering more than he does in canon story. There is a reason for this I only briefly brushed upon in earlier chapters. I never said that I was making Naruto too restricted; he'll blow away any other Genin (except Lee, since I think Lee got screwed with his opponent in the canon story). I never said that Naruto wouldn't eventually be able to reign in his control. He still hasn't met Kyuubi face to face after all. As far as making this story more "realistic" by putting more obscene amounts on a person's limbs since the story isn't in a realistic sense anyways. I'm not exactly following the traditional rules of canon Naruto, since this is my envisioning of the world that it is set in. So basically, to get off my soap box for a minute. No, I'm not ignoring your criticism, I simply haven't explained everything in the story yet, and if I say that I'm going with things one way, then I'm not going to change abruptly in the middle of the story, that would cause more problems then if I just go ahead anyways. For point of reference, since it was asked as well, I am completely up to date with the manga, but I don't really want to rely on most of the rumors or theories that influence most of the fanfiction out there. I hope I haven't soured your idea of my story, but I have to establish where I'm going with the story. Thank you the reviews, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto wiped his forehead to remove the few beads of sweat that had formed from the light workout he had done. Needless to say that his 'light' workout was anything but light. He had noticed a few months ago that the weights that Lee had used up until recently had been changed and therefore his speed had dropped significantly. When asked about it, Gai had merely said that Lee's body had reached a point at which going through the fortifying process to use heavy weights would no longer hinder the growth of his young body. Naruto had asked him when he would be able to do that as well, and Gai had told him that actually he had been ready for a while, seeing as he had apparently stopped growing for a while now. Something which had irked the young boy to no end. Both of his sparring partners had continued to grow in height, while he had barely grown upwards at all. Having been relatively the same height as Lee, and only a little shorter than Tenten. (A/N: Girls grow earlier than boys remember.) It had been a bit depressing to see them shoot upwards. It had also effected their sparring, since his shorter reach allowed them to counter his attacks with more ease than before.

So, when he had heard Gai tell him that he was ready for the fortifying process because he hadn't been growing upwards anymore, he was excited and somewhat miffed at the reason. Gai had then gone and explained the process to him. It had mostly involved Naruto building up the muscles that supported his joints, but there was a little bit of mysticism involved, since Gai had also painted some seals onto the joints of his muscles. Once the seals had been attached, and that was a painful process in and of itself, he had been left with what looked like chains tattooed around his joints. An odd look, but Naruto decided that it looked pretty badass overall.

Surprisingly though, Gai hadn't then placed heavier weights on his limbs. He had instead taken Naruto's set of weights and wrote the kanji for 'Guts' on each weight. When Naruto had looked at him incredulously, Gai had merely laughed and handed them back to Naruto. Naruto took them and placed them back on his limbs, not feeling any difference in the weight.

Slowly, the weights had grown heavier, and Naruto had felt a warm rush in the arms and legs as his chakra had been tapped into. Looking back to Gai with surprise as his body started hunching over from the weight, Gai had explained that even with the fortifying process, the limbs of a person could only take so much weight, so someone in the past had come up with a seal that could be placed on a weight and on the person, so that even though the weight wouldn't truly increase, the resistance caused by the weight would in fact increase.

Although the process worked incredibly well, it had one odd quirk. When the weights were taken off the person, and the seal stopped drawing on chakra, the weight would become real up until the chakra lying in them dissipated. This meant that Naruto and Lee had to be careful about placing them on the ground when taking the weights off, otherwise small craters would form. Not a big deal at the moment, but as the chakra output increased from their own increased power and speed, the crater would only get bigger.

All in all, the process felt somehow similar to being in water. Each movement required more effort to be at the same speed and power as before. Naruto had taken to the process pretty well, despite early occurrences that were laughable at best. He had learned quickly that his habit of taking the 'ninja route' of leaping rooftop to rooftop was a bad idea until he adapted to the weight. All it took was one too short leap to enforce that idea into Naruto's head, that and the landing in a dumpster at the bottom. He still could believe that trash could smell that bad. He shuddered at the memory.

While his gains in taijutsu had been increasing in leaps and bounds, his ninjutsu had been crawling. Once he had finished learning the jutsu that the old man had provided in his scrolls, he had bugged him again, and got flatly refused. The old man had simply said that Naruto's development for an academy student was already astounding, and he didn't want to push too much power into the boy at a young age. The old man had seen what happened when young people gained such power, names like Uchiha Itachi and Orochimaru popped into his head instantly.

With one avenue barred from him at this time, he had tried his other teacher, Kakashi. That had also not ended well, since it seems the old man had been a step ahead of him, and Kakashi had agreed with the old man. Frustrated at the lack of growth, and not wanting to only be focusing on his taijutsu, because it was already his strongest point, he had looked for other things to learn. It was with this in mind that he had approached Tenten for help.

The two of them had quickly become good friends over the few months they had known one another, and Naruto had decided that if Lee was his male best friend, then Tenten would fit the slot as female best friend. While there had been some interest for other things in the young boy, it had been squashed pretty quickly the first time she had talked about the 'prodigy' in her class, Hyuuga Neji. Naruto had met the boy a few weeks later, when he went to meet Tenten for training after her class. He had been less than impressed with the snob.

His other romantic interest, which had been Haruno Sakura, had left the building shortly thereafter, and it was with some uncertainty that he realized he noticed her only because of his past crush of the girl. When Naruto saw her now, he had felt nothing, only a sense of loss somewhere deep in his heart. Apparently, he had fallen out of love with the girl. Shrugging to himself, he had decided that he was too young to worry so much over a girl, and had gotten to his training with increased fervor.

Tenten had taught the boy some of the uses of seals, which the boy had paid rapt attention to. The boy figured that if seals could force someone to get stronger, and to make an explosion, they had to be pretty cool. Unfortunately, Tenten had not known a lot about seals, mostly using them for exploding tags and storage scrolls. Nonetheless, with these two abilities in his possession, Naruto had increased the effectiveness of several of his techniques, and even come up with some very surprising new tactics.

Naruto had also looked wistfully at the weapons racks every time he had gone over to train with Tenten. Something that Tenten had noticed, but not said anything about. It wasn't a secret between them that Naruto was an orphan, and despite all the training he was getting, nothing was supporting his financial life other than the monthly stipend that he received from the old man, and that was barely enough to cover rent and food. So purchasing a weapon was far from his reach right now, and the boy contented himself with being able to buy new kunai and shuriken after a few months of saving his money.

Naruto had decided after training with Tenten for a while, that he should try and learn more seals and had gone to the library to look up the art. Unfortunately, he had been kicked out before he even stepped a foot into the building. Not one to let anyone hinder his training, he had gone back to his house for a few hours, and then used his henge variant to transform into the Uchiha bastard. It made his skin crawl to be in the guise of the bastard, but he knew no one would question him entering the library with this look.

What he hadn't expected, was to end up running around the village for a few hours only minutes after walking away from his house. The Uchiha had a cult following of women, both ninja and civilian, some even older than him. While Naruto would have enjoyed the company of one or two, maybe even three or four girls trying to talk to him. Having over a dozen women chasing him was more than he could handle. It also had a negative impact on his ego, since he had no girls that liked him, while the Uchiha could pick and choose.

Finally arriving at the library, he had asked for some help finding the section on sealing and had been readily led to a section that contained very old looking scrolls. Reading for any long amount of time was something Naruto didn't find to be too much fun, but if it involved training or anything practical that was ninja-related, he could buckle down and read for hours on end. It was with this in mind that he gently opened the first scroll on the shelf and started reading.

All in all, it had been somewhat frustrating to find out that sealing was in fact an archaic method in the ninja world. The first ninjas had used seals extensively, before they had somehow gained the ability to use the techniques by themselves. A process that was not fully explained in the old scroll. However, sealing was an art that was generally passed down from one person to another, and there were few relevant scrolls in the library. Finding only one scroll that actively tried to teach sealing, Naruto had soaked up all the knowledge that lay in it.

He had been able to learn about some of the different uses of sealing, and some interesting theories on sealing, along with the one scroll that showed various seals known in the past to be used. Naruto had sighed after reading this final scroll and decided that he would have to approach the Hokage once again to see if he would help him in his endeavor.

The old man had been very surprised when the young boy he had considered too hyper and absent-minded had approached him for lessons on sealing, saying that he had already read the scrolls in the library that were relevant to the topic. It was with a heavy heart that he told the young boy that was not a master at sealing, even if he knew a few more uses than the usual ones. The two most prominent sealing masters that Konoha had provided were now either dead from sacrifice, or lord only knows where in the elemental countries. Jiraiya, his perverted but powerful student had gone into hermit status after the death of his young pupil, who had surpassed him in every way, Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage.

Naruto was very near to pulling his hair out after this, he had been barred or blocked in every direction he had tried to grow, and he didn't want to become too specialized. A specialized ninja would be utterly defeated whenever they met the natural enemy of their chosen style. This ironically, had been something he had told both Tenten and Lee, but while Lee had only said that he didn't have many other options open to him, Tenten had been adamant about her specialization. Naruto could only hope that she would never run into someone who could neutralize all her attacks.

Naruto finished up his workout and looked at the rising sun in the distance. 'Ah, time to head home then, don't want to get caught outside today.' The boy thought depressingly. It was once again his birthday, and while Naruto knew he could hold his own now, he didn't want to get into any unnecessary battles. He ducked and evaded down the streets and arrived safely at his home. He had a few close calls, but a quick Head Hunter no jutsu and he was able to wait the group of shinobi above him to pass by.

Whittling the time away by playing a few video games (A/N: Hey, it's in one of the ending clips for the anime, so don't try and tell me that they don't have them.) He got up around lunch to cook some food for himself. A little known fact about Naruto was that despite his love for ramen, he enjoyed a variety of food, and after bugging several people to teach him some culinary skills, he had been able to become a decent cook. He couldn't cook anything special, but if it was simple and had a recipe, then Naruto could manage it. Although most of the time, he only skimmed the recipe, since he usually didn't have all the ingredients, and made do with what he had.

Cooking up some beef stir-fry, he heard a knock on his door. Naruto sighed as he dropped the heat on his stove and walked over to the door, pulling out a kunai as he went. This wouldn't have been the first time someone came to his door to try and attack him. However, what he saw when he looked through the peephole on his door, surprised him, and it took him a second to open the door.

"Uh, hi, Tenten. What's up?"

"Oh not much, just wanted to drop by and…hey, is that stir-fry I smell?" The young girl asked, her nose twitching slightly.

"Uh, yeah, do you want some?" The boy asked, somewhat uncertain as to why she would be over today of all days.

"I'd love to, I didn't get a chance to eat this morning and I'm starving!" The young girl said while entering into the small apartment.

Naruto closed the door behind her, turned around, and headed to the kitchen to pull out more meat. Luckily he hadn't put the package back into the freezer yet, so it didn't require a lot of effort to have a second plate's worth cooking up in no time. He then walked over to where Tenten was sitting, on his very ragged couch.

"So, it'll be a few minutes before the food is ready, you want something to drink?" The boy asked, scratching his head, he hadn't really played the host very often, so he wasn't sure about all the intricacies that were involved.

"Yeah, what do you have?"

"I think I have a couple sodas, if you want? Otherwise it'll be tea or milk."

"Hmm, soda sounds good."

"Alright, I'll be right back." Naruto walked back over to his kitchen and pulled out two cokes from his fridge. Checking the food to see if it was almost done, he was pleased to find out that he could probably serve it in a minute or two.

"Here ya go." Naruto said while handing the girl her soda.

"Thanks." She said and both opened up their cans and Tenten heard a familiar fizzing sound coming from her can. Naruto didn't have the same luck as Tenten, as apparently the can he had grabbed, had been one he dropped earlier that day. Needless to say, Tenten nearly choked on her coke when she got the full sight of Naruto getting blasted with soda. The poor boy had it dripping out of his hair and his shirt was soaked.

"Aw damn it, I'll be right back after I wash up a little, can you watch the food so it doesn't burn?" Naruto asked while getting up to head to his room.

Tenten nodded her head, giggling the whole time and went over to check out the food. She was surprised to see a lack of clutter in the kitchen; she had been expecting to have to navigate through a maze of kitchenware. Looking at the food, she saw it was almost done, and turned down the heat so that it wouldn't burn.

Wandering back to the couch, she sat down for a minute before she got bored. Curious as to what was taking Naruto so long, she walked over to his bedroom door, which opened slowly when Tenten put her ear up to the door. She would have fallen into the room, but had grabbed onto the doorframe as soon as she felt her support slipping. She reached to grab the door and close it again, but her hand froze as she saw Naruto with his shirt off, picking a new shirt out of his closet. Tenten blushed as she saw his body, and quickly regained her senses and silently closed the door. She walked back to the couch with a racing heart, and that left her confused.

A minute later, Naruto left his room and went to check on the food, not noticing that Tenten blushed as soon as she saw him enter the room. The food was finally done, so he grabbed two plates and started to heap the food onto the plates. With two plates of food in his hands, and a new soda for himself in his pocket, Naruto walked over to where Tenten was sitting and handed her a plate. He didn't have a dining room set, so he usually just ate on the couch.

After a few minutes of digging in, Tenten let out a content sigh. She hadn't known if she the food would be good or not. It had smelled good enough, but this was Naruto's cooking after all. Luckily, it had tasted better even then it had smelled. She had wolfed down her food, much to Naruto's amusement. Though he did the same thing.

"So, not that I don't like the company and all, but why did you drop by today?" He asked; the question had been on his mind since she first arrived at his house.

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot all about it with the food and all. Hehe." She laughed and then pulled a long slender white box out of…somewhere. Naruto really did wonder sometimes where girls hid things like that. "Here, this is for you."

"For me? Really?"

"Well, it is your birthday isn't it? Silly." She playfully bopped him on the head.

"But…I didn't even tell you that, did I?"

"Nope, but I found out anyways, so go ahead. Open it. I'm sure you'll love it." She grinned, waiting for him to open it.

Naruto felt his eyes watering, so before he totally ruined his male pride, he opened the box. Inside was some kind of long curving cylindrical object wrapped in red silk. Naruto picked it up and got even more curious at the weight of the object. He slowly unwrapped the silk and gasped when he saw what lay therein. A brand new katana was inside. The handle was white with blue threads intertwined into the grip. The sheath was pearl white with a blue dragon racing down the side. Naruto slowly grabbed the handle and pulled out the gleaming blade. It was beautiful, with a flame pattern flowing down the blade.

Naruto's eyes were bugged out, and his mouth gaped like a fish. His attention returned to him when he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye, and looked over to see Tenten holding a camera with a grin on her face.

"So, you like it?"

"Like it? I love it! But how could you afford it, even with your father giving you discounts?"

"Haha, well, actually, I made that one, with Dad's help of course." The girl laughed and rubbed the back of her head nervously.

"You…you made this? For me?" The boy asked, feeling his eyes tearing up again.

"Yeah, I tried at least, if Dad hadn't been there to help, you would have gotten a pretty crappy present. Hehe." The girl didn't get to finish her laughing because she was suddenly surrounded by a pair of arms encircling her back.

Tenten was stunned. Naruto was hugging her, because she gave him a present? That was kind of an extreme response. Tenten's thought process ended there however when she felt wetness on her shoulder, and realized that Naruto had hugged her both in thanks and so he could hide the tears that her present forced out of him. She smiled and rubbed his back. In the back of her mind, she couldn't help but think, 'This kinda feels nice.'

A/N: So, yeah, I compromised a bit. I hadn't been planning on doing the seal system for his weights until he met up with Jiraiya later in the story, however after constant bugging about his weights, I compromised and gave him the system earlier. However, I stand completely firm on this, no matter how much you all gripe and complain, I will not make him into an uber Naruto. I like those stories myself, however, this story is not one of those. This is a story of how he could have turned out with a little more attention paid to him. While I can believe that with more attention, he would end up owning all other Genin, for him to suddenly be able to take on say Orochimaru or Itachi at 13? Please, there is no substitute for experience. Anyways, enough ranting, hope you guys liked this chapter. Oh, before you say something, yeah, I know, the katana is way overdone, but I like it, so tough.


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

When Naruto had thought of wielding and training to use the katana, he had been expecting glorious things. Not repetitive swinging. Over and over again. Tenten had been a ruthless if effective teacher in making sure that Naruto didn't slack off. Not that he would have done so anyways, it was against his nature to do so. But damn if swinging over and over again wasn't getting tiring.

He had watched as Tenten showed him a set of moves to use with the katana, or as she called it, a dance. It was entrancing to say the least, to see her lithe body wielding the shining slice of death in such an artful way. It definitely looked like a dance when she did it. It did not look like a dance when he did it, more like a clumsy drunk trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue.

She had told him shortly thereafter that before he even attempted to learn such complex maneuvers, he would have to get a good muscle memory of the basics. So with that in mind, she had given him a simple, yet very tiring regiment for his training. He would start with one hundred vertical strikes, then one hundred horizontal strikes from the left, then one hundred from the right. That task in and of itself was daunting, however, she upped the difficulty when she took his katana away and handed him a wooden bokken with weights attached to it. She had told him that if he continued to use the katana, he would probably end up injuring himself, and besides, the weights on the bokken made it heavier than the katana. Once he gained a good grasp of the basics with the bokken, he would be able to use the katana even faster and smoother than if he trained only with the katana.

It was a time-proven method, and Naruto decided that maybe the samurai had more knowledge of the art than he did, so he would trust in the training methods. Even if he did really just want the katana back in his hands. He couldn't explain it, but it felt so right in his hands, like it was meant for his use. Of course, in retrospect, it was in fact meant for his use, since Tenten herself had forged the katana for him. That was a thought that still brought a smile to his face, along with a blush.

Naruto sighed as his idle thoughts carried into his training and suddenly he had a weighted bokken slapping against his thigh. If he had been holding the katana, he would have just ended up slicing his leg open for the entire world to see. It would probably be quite a while before he would be able to use it against an opponent without hurting himself more than them. That was an embarrassing thought, and Naruto cringed at the truthfulness of it.

Tenten had told him that after he had beaten her in a kenjutsu battle using the bokken, she would give him back the katana. When Naruto pointed out that she was much better with the blade, and it would take forever to catch up, let alone pass her, she simply smiled and said that he better get to work then. Naruto had not found that to be quite as amusing as she did, but didn't retort, in fear that she might decide his regiment needed to be increased.

Walking over to his newest teacher after he finished the routine, he couldn't help but wonder if she was enjoying this as much as he was. Oh, he wouldn't lie, some of it was boring as hell, and Naruto was not a fan of repetition. He liked the saying 'variety is the spice of life' and tried to integrate variety into everything he did. However, he liked having a teacher that was around his age group, someone that he could work with and improve together with. Unlike Gai, who had all but mastered all things taijutsu. Not that learning from Tenten was new, he had after all learned some things about sealing from her. Kenjutsu was different though, it was more hands on than the other stuff. Several times, Tenten had to direct his arms through the kata in the beginning of his training. That had been a warm and pleasant feeling, and he had almost been tempted to continue to need help just so she would continue to help. Naruto shook his head as a blush formed when he thought about how she had to stand behind him and latch their arms together while she went through the movement, so that Naruto could feel how it was done properly. That had been an interesting experience.

Naruto didn't realize it, but he had let out a somewhat perverted giggle when he thought about it, and that had informed Tenten of his approach. Seeing him approach while off in his own little world gave her a wicked idea, and so she quickly set to her task of ambushing the poor boy. He would never know what hit him. Tenten left a bunshin of herself where she had been, and using the Head hunter jutsu, quickly got behind the boy as he approached.

Naruto snapped out of his daze when he saw Tenten relaxing in the shade of a tree nearby. He couldn't help but feel a tickle at the back of his neck though when she looked over to him and smiled. Something was wrong…she was being too nice while she was in teacher mode. Of course, it hadn't been the evil grin that she had the first time she set up his training regiment, but nonetheless Naruto couldn't help but feel like a hunted beast in the wild. Despite his increased vigilance and concern, he never expected a pair of slim hands to shoot out of the earth and grab his ankles.

Suddenly he was looking at a pair of ankles that had much softer curves then his own, craning his head upwards, he sighed as he realized that Tenten had used his own jutsu against him. Concentrating on moving his hands through the dirt so that he could form the handseals for the jutsu, he was surprised to find his hands tied to his sides. He hadn't even noticed her doing it.

"Huh…How?" Was all the poor boy could manage, and then he noticed the smile on her face had turned into a sadistic grin, oh this couldn't end well for the boy.

"Well, Naruto. I assume that you've finished your exercise for the day, so now, it's time for a little payback for our spar a few months ago."

"Payback? What kind of payback?"

"Well, it's almost lunch time now. I'm going to go eat some ramen, you can join me if you want to. But if you don't, I understand." The girl pretended to sob out the last part, oh yes, she was evil sometimes.

"Ramen! I'll go, I'll go!!"

"Well, that's good to say and all, but how are you going to get out of there?" The girl asked, seeing his face drain in realization.

He wouldn't be able to escape without her help, and he was going to miss out on eating ramen for lunch. Naruto dropped his head for a minute, she had tricked him pretty well, and his not often utilized prankster side could respect that. Narrowing his eyes, the boy wracked his mind to think of way to get out of this situation. One could see the light bulb go off over his head when he thought of the way. She wanted him to apologize, and maybe grovel a little. That wasn't his way, he didn't like to back down from anyone after all. He looked back up at her grin, and suddenly a grin broke on his face. Two could play at this game, then.

"You're right Tenten, I can't escape. However, the training area we are in right now, happens to border the Hyuuga residence. Or more specifically, Neji's training area. Which is why you picked this place, remember? I'd hate to see what he would think of you killing off your first and only student, especially after he finds out about your little crush on him." Naruto's grin broke out into a sadistic smirk to emphasize his threat. He wouldn't actually go through with it of course, but she didn't have to know that.

"You! You! That's just evil, you can't use something like that against me!" She blurted out, trying to regain her footing in this debate. She had underestimated him, she could see that now, he could be more devious than he put on.

"A ninja uses every tool at his disposal, _sensei_." Naruto drawled out the last part, making sure to get under her skin. It worked apparently, because Tenten glared at him before sighing and put her hands into a hand sign and softly saying "kai". This released the genjutsu that had been making Naruto think his hands were tied up. Naruto's eyebrow quirked at that, 'Well at least that explains how she did it so quickly and without my noticing.' The boy thought as he quickly did the handseals to escape the ground and then walked over to the now dejected girl.

"Come on, that ramen is calling. I'll buy you a bowl." Naruto offered while placing a hand of her shoulder to cheer her up. It worked, because she cracked a smile for him and fell in step with him as he walked along.

"So, Naruto, what do you think of kenjutsu so far?" The girl asked after they had arrived and ordered their ramen. A vastly different order too. Naruto had ordered ten bowls of ramen to Tenten's two bowls.

After slurping up some noodles, Naruto looked over to the girl to see if she was trying to test him. Seeing no hidden agenda there, Naruto shrugged and said "Well, it's a lot harder than I originally thought, but I guess other than the boring drills, it's pretty cool. I just want to be able to get to use some of those dances though, they were beautiful when you used them."

Tenten blushed at the inadvertent compliment, and laughed it off. She didn't really think she was a beautiful girl, not in a village where girls had such exotic colors. Hell, there was a girl with pink hair at the academy! Most of the other girls also had pretty eye colors too, but not Tenten. She was just plain in her mind, brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly tanned skin. She had tried to bolster her looks slightly by wearing somewhat more traditional clothing. She had thought about wearing makeup, but after the first incident of training hard and having it run down her face from her sweat, she had abandoned that idea.

She had resigned herself to being plain looking, she couldn't improve her looks after all. She could however improve her kunoichi skills, and so her goal had always been to become a legendary kunoichi like her idol, Tsunade. Tenten was however, still a girl, and therefore still self-conscious about her looks, and when someone complimented her looks, she would blush, no matter who it was. Unfortunately, Naruto didn't realize this, and so he would give her compliments regularly, and make her blush far more often than Tenten would prefer. Not that she didn't enjoy the compliments, but it was just Naruto after all, not someone like Neji complimenting her.

"Well, I'm sure that you'll be able to do them sooner or later. That all depends on how dedicated you are to the routine. If you feel you're up for it, I could test you again when we get back, and see if you're ready to learn some new moves." The girl asked, after regaining her voice.

"That's awesome! Hell yeah, I'd love to learn some new moves from you!" Naruto shouted, oblivious to the dual nature of his words. In his mind, they had been a simple declaration of wanting to learn more sword stuff. However, in the mind of the public, which included several young girls, there was another meaning. A meaning that Kakashi or Jiraiya would be interested in, and proud of Naruto for. Tenten understood the dual nature of the words, and a bright blush enflamed her face.

"Naruto…if you ever want to have children in your future, never scream something like that out again, especially in a crowded area." The girl said, making her voice as serious as possible, while brandishing a katana that she had pulled out of … somewhere…and pointing it at Naruto's 'precious'. The boy gulped, while losing several shades of color, and nodded quickly.

They quickly finished eating and left in a hurry, to try and avoid public eye. Naruto had one thought running through his mind as he left the establishment, and it was one that all men think at some point during their life. 'I'll never understand women.' A thought which would later be compounded with a lot of pain when he had been foolish enough to utter it aloud when Tenten got ready to test him to see if he advanced at all. That beating was something he was not going to forget for a while, and he wondered idly if he would be safer just not talking to the fairer sex, which ironically, was another thought that a lot of men consider at some point in their life.

Unfortunately for the two young children, their quick escape was seen by several people. They all got the wrong impression, and very shortly thereafter the rumor mill was afire with the rumor of the demon brat taking a girl into his possession and forcing her to obey his every whim. Tenten would get several sympathetic looks, which bewildered her, for the next couple weeks. Naruto on the other hand got a mixture of even more heated glares from the women in the village, and a few perverted grins from some of the men. This freaked out Naruto even more than the glares, and he quickly hid back in his room and started rocking back and forth until all the horrible reasons why they might grin perversely at him had been eradicated from his mind.

The next time the two had met, things had been awkward for a few minutes, until Naruto had tripped on a tree root and face planted into a mud pit. The scene was so hilarious that Tenten couldn't help but laugh as she pulled the boy out of the mud, which only increased her laughter as he looked at her with a face full of mud. The only parts not covered were his shining blue eyes and his bright blonde hair. It left quite an image, and Tenten had pulled out a mirror so that Naruto could get a look at himself. When he did, he burst out in laughter himself. He looked utterly ridiculous at the moment, and after a good healing session of laughter and Naruto going to wash his face off in a nearby stream, the two got back to work in their respective training.

A/N: Well, it seems like this story had finally garnered a bit of attention, and I'm glad to see that my hard work is paying off. It is also very nice to see several new reviews every time I go check the status on my story. To address a few of those reviews, thank you for the input, it is appreciated. One reviewer suggested a completely different look for the sword, sorry that you don't like it, but it's not changing. I might consider him getting a more discreet sheath for covert ops, but that's it. Moving on, to address the review about using a katana instead of something more exotic. Read the A/N next time. That's all I have to say about that. Just to let you all know my opinion on this, I feel that if a story has a flaw or something along those lines, the author is better off just integrating it into his story as his spin on things, since when correcting the story, it usually suffers, as no author likes to rewrite his work, so he won't put nearly as much enthusiasm and creativity in it. So, I won't go back and fix anything I have in my story to your liking, but I might add a way to counter it in the future. If I want to of course, this is after all, my story. Thank you for reading this story, and I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter.


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto watched as a few leaves were blown idly by the wind. He watched as they swirled around several times, caught in their own intricate dance. They crossed the street and blew over the fence surrounding the building that Naruto was currently standing in front of. The leaves continued to drift along until they landed peacefully in a nearby pond, causing a few ripples that dissipated quickly. There were no more signs of the incident happening, except for the memory that Naruto kept in his mind.

Sighing loudly, Naruto focused his attention back on the building in front of him. It had been several years since the boy had last been here, and he was slightly apprehensive at once again entering through the door that led to so many memories. There were a few good memories there, but so many more that were not exactly pleasant. Yet his dream and his future relied on him passing through those doors, and confronting the people that lay therein. It was a daunting task, but he would strive on, he always did.

Suddenly, a bell rang over the yard, and he saw several people move towards the doors that he would be entering. He watched them go, letting them pass through the doors before he put even one foot forward. It wasn't that he was scared of the place. He knew better than to be scared of a little building inside his own village. However, he was nervous.

Seeing the last person walking through the door, he knew that he had to go too. Otherwise he would be late, and that was not the impression he wanted to make. With a somewhat heavy heart, but a small sense of excitement and dare he say it, hope, he started the slow walk towards that one door. One could have thought he was being led to his execution, or that he was headed towards his dying wife's hospital room. Such was the look of the poor boy. It was time.

It was time to head back to the academy.

------------------------- 6 months before -------------------------

Naruto's training had been going exceptionally well over the last few months, and he was proud of his accomplishments. He had become an exceptional taijutsu user for his age, easily around mid Chuunin level, and that was no small feat for a boy his age. His ninjutsu was also nothing to sneeze at, with several Genin, two Chuunin, and one Jounin level jutsu. His kenjutsu had also progressed well, he was far from mastery for sure, but he could actually use the blade effectively in combat now, and that was much better than he had been when he had started. He had only been able to learn one dance in the end. The other ones just didn't fit to him, and so he would have to make his own in the future.

His genjutsu skills were still only barely above academy student level however, not really even Genin level, and that was a glaring black spot on his rather well rounded repertoire. He really wished he had been able to progress there, but unfortunately, without a proper teacher, he wouldn't be able to grow there. Not to mention his continuing control issues made him much less able to accomplish the complexity of those jutsus.

His sealing skills still only included making explosive tags, and using storage scrolls. He was going to have to find a teacher for that as well, but that seemed like it would have to take backseat for a while, despite the interest it had piqued in the boy when he thought of all the possibilities that hadn't been explored yet in that field.

Overall, when he had asked Gai about where he would place his level at, Gai had responded by telling him that since he had no combat experience, he would place him at upper Genin level, but once he had some under his belt, he would be low to mid Chuunin. That was very encouraging to him, since he would be entering the academy very soon.

That was something that both filled the boy with apprehension and excitement. He had been a little lonely lately, with Gai having put in for a team six months ago. His only condition to the Hokage when applying for the job, was that he have his pupil, Lee, under his command. The old man, who had seen the improvement in the boy who had once had a bleak future ahead of him, turn into a fine ninja despite his condition, had readily agreed to the simple condition.

Naruto's time training with Gai and Lee had obviously been shortened because of that, only able to train in the morning with them. Ironically, his time with Tenten had been cut short in the same way, since she was also on Team Gai. There was also the Hyuuga boy that Tenten crushed on, and Naruto was not very happy about that, though he couldn't place why exactly, other than he simply disliked the boy.

The boy's only other trainer, Kakashi, couldn't be bothered, and that left Naruto drifting. It wasn't that he didn't understand the man, training with him for a few months, as he tried to get mastery over the few techniques he had been given, had given him insight into the inner workings of the tall man's mind. It was just; he had no one else to turn to at this point. He couldn't try and get the Hokage to help him anymore than he already had. The man had already passed the point of favoritism with Naruto, and any more help and he was likely to get in trouble because of it.

With little else to do except continue training what he already knew, Naruto had pushed his taijutsu into that upper level, and had trained his katana usage. He had come up with new exercises, to try and replicate combat experience, so he could gain an edge over his age group. These mostly involved mass battles with his earth bunshin. That was all well and good, since it helped him learn how to fight against multiple opponents, but there was one great flaw to it, which was why he didn't use it extensively. The opponents were all him, and therefore, all thought like him, and had only his capabilities. To add to the problem, the earth bunshin couldn't perform jutsu, so he was basically fighting a bunch of well trained thugs.

Because of the lack of new and exciting training to be had, Naruto delved into other exciting things. Hence, his prankster nature got the better of him, and the whole village had despaired. What had once been a very occasional prank on the people that had wronged him badly, became pranking on an epic scale, including a few whole village pranks. No one was really sure he pulled some of those pranks off, but nonetheless, he had, and some people took note of that fact. For a person to prank an entire village full of ninja, that would require extensive stealth skills. Anbu opened a file on Uzumaki Naruto, and marked him as someone to watch for possible recruitment in the years to come.

His latest prank was very wide, it was one in which he dyed every villagers' hair orange. Or at least, every villager who had been asleep that night, and he left the ninja alone, since sleepy ninja were just as dangerous as surprised ninja. After the village woke up that morning, there had been mass hysteria, and the ninja taskforce were strained to keep the village sane in the ensuing madness. Naruto had found it hilarious. At least, until the point in which he had been chased by half a dozen Jounin. That had not been nearly as funny to the boy.

The benefit of the pranks were that his already exceptional stealth skills were improved, along with his tactics and planning. He learned that having several escape routes preplanned were very useful, since things had a tendency to go wrong in the escape. If Naruto had ever heard of Murphy 's Law, which stated that everything that can go wrong will, he would have readily signed his name on the list of believers.

It was also during this time, that Naruto got to trying to invent his own techniques. After discovering that most of the village shinobi were perverted, he had come up with a devious plan to create a pervert busting technique. Ironically, the creation of this technique involved several things that were highly perverted, and so Naruto stepped his first steps into hypocrisy. The technique wasn't entirely too hard for him, it mostly involved taking his henge variant, and removing a few things from the person he transformed into. After a lot of study, probably more than what was necessary, he came up with the Sexy no jutsu, which he found to be both highly effective, and highly dangerous.

It worked on almost all men, though a few didn't react, and Naruto didn't want to even consider why. Unfortunately, it had a side effect that Naruto had not anticipated, and he had decided after that first incident, that he could not use the jutsu except in certain conditions. Those conditions were simple, no women could be in the immediate area. While the technique incapacitated all men, it enraged all women. Often making their strength increase to the point where the lack of men in a battle no longer mattered. It was like taking four Genin, knocking three of them out, and replacing the fourth with a Jounin.

Naruto had considered the possibilities of using the jutsu to enrage a kunoichi before a battle against other villages, and went to the Hokage with the plan. The old man had asked Naruto to demonstrate his technique, and that was the first time that Naruto found out the old man was also a pervert. Stunned by this fact, he didn't notice a young boy looking at him with wonder and stars in his eyes at his accomplishment of taking out a Hokage with only one technique.

Later that day, Naruto would be walking home to his apartment when he noticed that he was being followed, badly, by a small box painted to look like a rock. His eyebrow had twitched at the horrible disguise, and it was with very little grace that he yelled at the 'rock' to get a more realistic disguise. After the rock had exploded shortly thereafter, he had been exposed to the view of three young children who had then proclaimed his as their boss.

With no idea how to handle the situation, and no idea what else to do, he had taken the kids under his wing and began teaching them how to defend themselves. The children absorbed everything Naruto taught like a sponge, and soon found themselves to be at the top of their class in the academy. When prompted about this, they only went to say that they had an awesome boss who was tutoring them. It was after much more prompting that they eventually gave up the name of their boss, and Uzumaki Naruto earned a file in the academy as a possible teacher to recruit in the years to come.

Naruto of course, had no idea that his actions were causing such reactions, and continued to mope around because his friends were always out on missions nowadays. He would later find this to be very ironic, since in a future not too long from his current time, he'd be wishing he was back in the academy rather than complete another D rank mission.

His friends knew of his plight however, and he had been the recipient of several unexpected visits from the green beasts of Konoha, who would shout about youth and flames and generally speaking, get way too touchy feely for Naruto's personal comfort. Naruto had tried his newly minted Sexy no jutsu against the two of them, and was horrified to see neither blink at it, other than to quickly admonish the boy for diminishing his flame and passion of youth with such an un-youthful technique. He did not show the technique to Tenten when she dropped by to eat with him, since he would like to keep several pieces of his anatomy that he was sure would be missing if he did show the move to her.

All and all, time moved slowly for the boy, and he was left slowly ticking days off his calendar in anticipation for his entrance to the academy. Gai had informed him that he would be joining the academy a month before graduation, so that he could try and form some friendships with his possible partners. Naruto suspected the old man's hand in this matter, since it had been Naruto's choice to not show up till graduation. The old man however, was always worrying that Naruto did not have enough friends in his age group, most being adults, and two being slightly older than him. Neither of the two would be on his team, and as such, he would not being seeing them nearly as much when he got onto a team of his own.

-----------------------Current Time-------------------------

Naruto walked through the hallways, memories flooding back into his head as he went. His first class had been in that room on the left. His first fight had been in the room there on the right, a fight he had lost, badly. In the hallway up ahead was a water fountain, and Naruto remembered first seeing Sakura while taking a drink at that very fountain. He couldn't remember why he had fallen in love with her there, but he had. Not that it mattered now, since he felt nothing for the Sasuke-obsessed girl anymore.

Naruto continued to walk forwards until he arrived at a door with the same number as the one written on the note that the Hokage had given him yesterday. The note was to be given to the teacher of this class, to explain Naruto's arrival and re-enlistment into the academy. Naruto looked at the door one more time, and put his hand on the handle.

With a gentle tug, the door slid open, and he heard all noise in the previously loud room quiet down as he stepped into it. All eyes in the classroom turned to him, and the scar-nosed Chuunin at the front of the class motioned for the boy to come to him. Walking down the aisle between a set of desks, Naruto tried to not notice every look being sent his way. There were mostly curious looks, a few bored looks, and a few looks that he couldn't quite place from a few of the girls who whispered to themselves as he passed.

Passing the note to the scar-nosed Chuunin, he watched as the man's face took on the look of surprise as he read the note, then saw the man's face pale, and then regain color before clearing his throat and looking towards his class.

"Well class, I have an announcement to make." At this the whole class perked up, even those who hadn't been really interested beforehand found it difficult to not be curious at this point.

"I would like you all to welcome a new student to the class. Though you might remember him, since he was in your class a few years ago. Class, this is Uzumaki Naruto."

A/N: Amazingly enough, I have no gripes in this A/N, since no reviews really hacked away at me. The only thing I can address is that one review mentioned I'm making Naruto too powerful. I can only guess at what to say to that, since I've tried to make him as realistically powerful as possible considering all the training, without super-powering him. I do appreciate another review that remarked upon my update rate, it's not easy to keep writing consistently, but I'd like to think that it's a major selling point for my story, and therefore will draw in a lot of attention. I don't see many other stories with as many words for the amount of time it's been posted. Well, hope you like this chapter, and looking forward to more good reviews.


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Silence ensued in the class. A few students had thoughtful expressions on their faces, as they tried to remember the name and face attached to it. Some had disbelieving looks, since these ones had remembered the little blonde ball of trouble, and that picture did not match up very well with the tall muscular blonde in the front of the class. A few students looked at the boy as if they were measuring him up, trying to find out what he was capable of. The last portion of the class was a few of the females were checking out this new boy in their class, said boy being tall, tan, and fit induced a few lustful looks.

After a few moments of silence, the boy in question was getting pretty nervous up in the front. He had expected maybe a few people to be surprised by his return, but not having the whole class being completely silenced. He wasn't sure if he should take this as a good sign or a bad sign. After scratching his head nervously and shooting off a foxy grin, he waved his hand to the class. This had the effect of loosening up the majority of the class. The ones who remembered him decided that yes, this was still the idiot. The few who had been measuring him up decided he might not be worth the effort to research. The girls, who had been checking him out however, thought his actions were very cute, and though Naruto did not know it, he had the makings of his own fan club just by being the lovable guy that he has always been.

"Now Uzumaki-san, would you be so kind as to tell some things about yourself to the class? General things, like your likes, dislikes and dream for the future should suffice." The scar-nosed instructor asked the boy.

"Ah, right. Well, my name is as you know, Uzumaki Naruto, my likes are training with my friends and senseis, eating ramen, and learning new jutsu. My dislikes are people who are full of themselves, people who try to harm my precious people, and people who hate others for no apparent reason. My dream is to grow to be strong enough to protect everyone I consider precious."

"That's a very noble dream Uzumaki-san. Now then, take a seat in the back next to Nara-san, who will raise his hand to let you know who he is…WAKE UP SHIKAMARU!!!" The instructor yelled at a sleeping boy with pineapple shaped hair. The boy lifted his head from the desk, with drool hanging off his lip and lazily lifted one arm up in the air just long enough for Naruto to see, and then put it and his head back on the desk. The instructor sighed and continued, "I am Iruka, and the other instructor is Mizuki-san, welcome to the class."

Naruto nodded and walked over to the empty seat next to the sleeping boy. He looked at the boy briefly, and shrugged, deciding to let the boy sleep if he wanted to. It wasn't his nature to force someone into doing something that they didn't want to do after all.

"Don't worry about Shikamaru, he'll be fine." A voice came from behind him, and Naruto turned his head to see a somewhat heavyset boy eating chips out of a bag.

"Ah, well then, I'll be sure to let him sleep…" Naruto finished, waiting for the other boy to fill in the gap with his name.

"Akimichi Chouji. Shikamaru there is my best friend, but he's too lazy to stay awake in class."

"Doesn't he have trouble with the tests then?"

"Nah, he usually marks down a few answers, just enough to stay in the class usually, since he's too lazy to write anymore than that. But his answers are always correct."

"Ah, well, that's interesting." Naruto noted in his head to keep an eye on the Nara, he apparently was much smarter than he let on.

"What about you? Why did you leave the academy, only to come back right before graduation?" The chip munching boy asked.

"Well, I had extenuating circumstances, but I should be alright when it comes to the practical portions of the class. I have been training exclusively with several teachers since then." Naruto said, not realizing that most of the class had quieted down in order to hear this conversation, and that one Uchiha had heard this and quietly began to fume at this no name that had so much more training then him.

"Huh, well, then you should be pretty strong. You might want to watch out though, looks like Sasuke has it out for you already." Chouji said while pointing a grease covered finger towards the silent, brooding boy.

Naruto turned his head to follow the finger, and saw the Uchiha in all his glory glaring a hole through Naruto's skull. Not one to let something like that pass easily, Naruto turned his body back towards the front and did something no one had done before when confronted by the Uchiha. He completely ignored him and set to paying attention to the class being given. Naruto smiled on the inside as he could feel the weak killing intent that shot out from the Uchiha at being ignored, and could only snicker as he thought of what the boy was probably thinking right now. Something about him not respecting the superior ninja or something equally as ridiculous probably.

Oh how right Naruto was, because at that moment Sasuke was indeed thinking something along those lines. 'How dare that no name ignore ME, I am an Uchiha, vastly superior to everyone in this village. He should be ready to lick the dirt off my sandals, not brush me off like I was insignificant. I'll have to show him just who's boss around here.' Sasuke thought, and ended with an evil smirk at the thought of a rolled up Naruto begging forgiveness from the almighty Uchiha. He would just have to wait for the chance to do it.

Naruto felt the change in the attitude of the Uchiha, and sighed to himself. First day back and he was probably going to end up in a fight. Ah well, at least he'd have fun humiliating the boy. Hopefully Gai wouldn't tear into him too bad for laying the boy out. After all, it was youthful to 'spar' with new people, right?

The class drew onwards, as everyone was now waiting for the boring history lesson to finish up for more exciting things, like the practical exercise. Naruto however, was having a lot of fun in the class. He hadn't really done any 'book work' since he had begun his intensive physical training, and he was surprised to find that the history had already talked about some time tested strategies that he never would have thought about. Of course, most of it was about negotiations, since ninja tended to work in the background, not in all out wars. However, there had been a few of those, and Naruto decided to study as much as he could about those wars, since that was likely the place to learn the most valuable lessons.

Iruka was equally surprised to find the Uzumaki to be paying rapt attention to the class. He remembered the brat that had just entered his class, a boy who couldn't stay in his seat for more than a minute, and paid absolutely no attention to the class at all. He had spent all his time trying to amuse the class. Iruka was suddenly reminded of his own academy days, but shook that image off immediately. There was no way that he and that brat were similar. Moving on, he noticed that Naruto's attention had an unexpected side effect. A lot of the students who normally didn't pay attention were now glancing at Naruto, seeing his rapt attention, and then focusing their own attention on Iruka to find out what had captured the blonde attention so completely. Iruka smiled inside at that, maybe having the brat in the class wouldn't be so horrible after all, if he continued to inspire others to pay attention.

Pretty soon however, the Chuunin had finished his lecture, and looked towards the other instructor to take over. Mizuki nodded and walked to the front of the class. His eyes roamed over the class and zeroed in on the Uzumaki brat. A glare was well hidden in his eyes, but a few people, including Naruto himself, noticed the look. Naruto sighed internally as he had found another person to add to the 'hate people for no apparent reason' list.

"Alright class, we're going to go outside and do some sparring now. So the faster you get out there, the faster we can start." The man said, his voice ringing out over the class.

It was an interesting sight to see after that, several of the boys raced outside, while the girls walked at a hurried pace, a few of the boys walked lazily out there. Most of them were doing the same thing that they usually did; however there were a few key differences. The Uchiha, who usually walked out arrogantly and slowly, was now slightly hurried, wanting to make sure that he would get a chance to take out the no name boy. Shikamaru was also hurrying up faster than usual, but this was in no small part because of the instructor glaring at his back to hurry up. 'So troublesome, why are they all so interested in this Naruto person?' The boy thought to himself, but found that he himself was a little curious.

Naruto walked at a normal pace, he already knew that he would be fighting the Uchiha. If nothing had changed in the class since he left, then the boy was probably still ranked as the top of the class, and since Mizuki had it out for Naruto, he would most definitely be paired up to spar with him. Not to mention that the Uchiha had it out for him as well, a fact that none of the class had missed, and would likely go all out against him. Mizuki would be hoping that Sasuke would wipe the floor with the boy, but if that's what he expected, he'd be in for a surprise. Naruto had considered hiding his abilities, and he would, to some degree, but he would show just enough to humiliate the boy that had humiliated Naruto so many times before. It would be sweet revenge in a way. He hadn't come into the class with ill regard towards the boy, but he had brought it upon himself when he proved to be just as much of a jerk as before.

The class exited outside of the academy and headed towards a sandy clearing that had boundaries marked. It was obviously intended for sparring battles, and Naruto was only slightly surprised that the landscape seemed so…untouched. Didn't these people ever use jutsu? Or was their sparring going to be mediocre at best. Naruto sighed when he reminded himself that he was in the academy, students here would likely only know the basic jutsu, and possibly a few clan techniques.

After the class had formed up in a circle around the clearing, with Mizuki standing in the middle, Iruka was inside cleaning up the classroom for the next day, Mizuki began to speak. "Alright, now then, with a new addition to the class, we can't just do the normal sparring session, since someone will have to spar with Uzumaki-san. Seeing as this could be a potential problem if no one wanted to spar with him, or if too many people want to spar with him, I'll pick someone out. Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto, please enter the field."

Sasuke smirked as he was glad he wouldn't have to fight someone else, he had been hoping to fight Naruto at some point during the session, but to have him first, oh life was sweet. He would truly get to enjoy pounding the boy into the ground now, when he had no excuse of being tired to back him up. Sasuke realized that it was somewhat odd to place a new addition in the class against the top fighter; it would be a little harsh after all. It would be much more fair to put him up against a middle ranked fighter, to see if he was above or below that level, but oh well, he would enjoy this all the same. He figured that Mizuki must have realized his desire to fight the boy and knowing his place, the man had bowed down to the wishes of the Uchiha, as it should be.

Naruto merely stepped out into the clearing and cracked his neck as he walked forward, a sound that made several people cringe. After loosening up his arms and making his knuckles crack by putting his hands into fists, he stood ready to listen to the rules of the spar. His stance was loose, so that he could easily switch between ninjutsu and taijutsu, depending on the rules of the spar.

"Alright, since Uzumaki-san doesn't know the rules, I'll explain them now. This spar is purely taijutsu," Naruto changed his stance into a much more guarded one at this, "and the victor will be decided by the first person to land five solid blows against the other person. Glancing blows won't count, no matter how many you land," Sasuke smirked at this, he could beat the boy down slowly before landing a quick succession of heavy blows, "or the first person to land outside the border of this sparring pit. If I decide that the battle is over for any reason, both fighters must cease at once. Permanent damage to the opponent is expressly forbidden, and will disqualify you immediately. Now, when I say so you will begin." Mizuki finished, looking at the two boys in their separate stances.

Sasuke had flawlessly formed himself into the academy taught taijutsu, and Mizuki could see that he was ready to pounce of the boy at the drop of a hat 'Good'. Mizuki then looked over to Naruto and saw a stance that he was vaguely familiar with, but couldn't remember who was the user of it, he wasn't worried though, the brat would still get owned by Sasuke.

Naruto was standing in the first and most basic stance of the taijutsu style that Gai had taught him, it was a solid stance that left few openings, and allowed the user to provoke the opposition into attacking in anger. Which is what he did when he used the hand in front of him to beckon the Uchiha to attack when ready. This did not go over well with the boy who suddenly saw red and was about to attack when he remembered that Mizuki had not given the signal yet and waited for his chance to demolish the upstart. Mizuki saw that both boys were ready, though he wished that only Sasuke had been ready, raised his hand in the sky and brought it down quickly in a chop that signaled the beginning of the match.

Sasuke bolted off towards the stationery Naruto, fully intent to catch the boy by surprise. 'Hah, he must be scared, he hasn't even moved.' The boy thought and drew his right hand back to throw a haymaker that he would purposely arced too much inwards so that it would only glance painfully on the boy. Naruto saw the movement in the arm and watched the muscles carefully. Deciding it was probably a haymaker, though it was difficult since the Uchiha had set himself slightly different in order to only land a glancing blow, Naruto got ready to bend his body at the waist, so that he could dodge by simple moving his upper half backwards.

The blow came right from the expected position, and with a slight bend, Naruto effortlessly let the blow sail in front of him harmlessly. The Uchiha, seeing his blow be dodged so easily decided that he would skip the beating the boy slowly and instead just pound the boy into the ground, getting as many blows as he could before Mizuki could pull him off. With this in mind, Sasuke used the momentum his body had already built from the missed haymaker to bend his body at the waist and draw his right leg up into a vicious side kick.

Or at least, it would have been a vicious side kick, but Naruto simply jumped upwards and let the blow slide underneath him. Once again, the blow was completely harmless, and now Sasuke had positioned himself with his back to the other boy. He immediately began twisting his upper body as he brought his right arm into a backhanded blow. It never got close however, since Naruto had taken the prime opportunity in front of him, and kicked Sasuke squarely in the lower back. It was a solid hit, and Sasuke flew forwards, eating some dirt on the impact. Naruto looked over to see if Mizuki saw it, and his eyebrow twitched when he saw the man looking anywhere but the battle. 'Oh, so that's how it is, eh? Only willing to count the Uchiha's blows? Fine then, I'll set something up you can't ignore then.'

Naruto waited while Sasuke got up and brushed off a lip that was bleeding from where he had connected with a rock embedded in the ground. Funny that, considering that Sasuke didn't remember there being any rocks on the dusty ground before. He never noticed the slight twitching of Naruto's lip. Sasuke leapt forward once again, not willing to admit that Naruto might have an advantage in taijutsu. He quickly threw a left jab that was simply dodged with a quick dip of the head to the left. He followed by a right jab and a left hook. Both were dodged effortlessly, and Sasuke was getting fed up. He knew that everyone in their class was watching, and had seen the open jaw expressions on several of them. They must think that he was being beaten, well, Sasuke wouldn't stand for that. Deciding to take this up a notch, rules be damned, he leapt backwards, earning a cocked eyebrow from Naruto. He quickly raced through some handseals, and brought his hand to his mouth. "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" The boy shouted, before several fist size fireballs flew outwards, aiming in every direction Naruto could use to avoid if he didn't dodge the rest that were aiming directly at him.

Naruto glanced quickly at Mizuki, who was pretending to clean his nails, and with a grunt, he used his impressive speed to get behind the Uchiha. He wouldn't stoop to using jutsu, because he knew that Mizuki would definitely spot him using it. Once he was behind the Uchiha, he grabbed the boy in a headlock and with a quick twist of his body, had the boy up in the air and rotating in a three sixty around Naruto. Naruto finished his spin and launched the Uchiha, directly at Mizuki. Neither were prepared for the impact, and they ended up both sprawled out on the ground, with Sasuke lying between Mizuki's legs. It was a very disturbing sight, and several of the boys in the class almost retched.

Iruka, who had heard the small explosions from the fire jutsu, had raced outside to see the problem, and was welcomed with the sight of his co-instructor and top student in a position to dry hump each other. It wasn't something he'd seen before, and was only brought out of his daze when a flash came from his right. He looked over to see Naruto putting a camera back into his pocket and flashing Iruka a grin.

"So, do I win, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka nodded slowly, and realizing that he would have to take over the remaining spars, said "Winner: Uzumaki Naruto."

A/N: Ahhh, you have no idea how much I enjoyed writing that fighting scene. I hope you enjoyed it, although if you are a Sasuke fan, you probably didn't. Wow, by the way, I had a huge amount of reviews on the last chapter. Thank you all so much. To address one reviewer, no I don't have a stockpile of chapters. I've actually been expecting that question for a while now. I'm writing this as I go, with very little pre-planning, which probably shows a bit. I usually just let my fingers dance across the keyboard, and see what pops out. Another reviewer asked about my gender, well, I am in fact, male, lol at least I was last time I checked. On that note, I updated my profile if you feel like checking it out. Another reviewer asked about teams, well, I'll let that one be a surprise. Well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I'll write another soon. Just to let you know, if you all haven't figured it out by now, this will be epic length, so you can continue to expect new chapters consistently.


	13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto had noticed several differences after that day. Most of the class was a lot more wary of the boy, after seeing how he had handled the supposed "top of the class". Ironically, the Uchiha still held the title, since Mizuki had declared that the battle had gotten outside the regular bounds, and therefore was an invalid match. This had caused quite a stir in the class, with several outbursts about it, seeing as the Uchiha was the one to disqualify himself and the match. Naruto's strongest supporter was Kiba, who apparently had as much of a rivalry with the Uchiha as Naruto himself did. In fact, after the battle, Kiba had come up to the blonde boy and slung his arm around Naruto's shoulder, saying that the two of them were going to be buddies from then on out. Naruto had not seen any problem with the arrangement, since Kiba was in fact one of the stronger people in the academy. His status as an Uchiha-hater was only a boon to the boy's status in Naruto's mind.

Kiba was not the only one to approach the blonde boy after the battle though. Chouji, who had been nice to Naruto, if not out right friendly, had approached Naruto and Kiba and complimented Naruto on his performance. He appreciated taijutsu almost as much as Kiba did, since both of their families based their style on it. Considering that taijutsu was something that Naruto had also focused on, they all fit together very well. Especially when Naruto had found out that Kiba had a prankster streak in him. The rest of the class would groan in the future when they thought about some of the creative ways that those boys had used traps.

With Chouji becoming one of his friends, Shikamaru was dragged into the circle as well. He was apparently too lazy to do it himself, but since Chouji was his best friend, he wouldn't settle with just being another stranger to Naruto. Naruto found the boy to be both frustrating and exhilarating. While the boy was slothful to the point of it being a deadly sin, he was also the most ingenious person that Naruto had ever met. The old man Hokage was probably around the same intelligence, but Naruto figured that was a biased comparison. When the four guys had decided to start skipping some of the more boring classes, Naruto was the one who usually created a plan, but Shikamaru would refine it, pointing out the flaws immediately that Naruto hadn't seen.

They had learned several things about one another, and each fit into a different slot in Naruto's new life. Kiba was quickly becoming his best friend, and was also the one who he'd get into the most fights with. Both boys were outspoken and brash, with large egos, and they had a healthy rivalry building between them. Of course, if shit hit the fan, Naruto would want Kiba by his side immediately.

Chouji had become a backbone of moral support for Naruto, with his always kind and caring attitude. Not to say that he couldn't throw down in a battle as well, that's for certain. Naruto had learned the hard way that despite his extra bulk, there was a lot of muscle on the Akimichi's frame. He wasn't as strong as Naruto, and Naruto had taken a heavier hit from Lee before, but it was still something to remember. Especially if one made the mistake of calling him fat. Naruto had seen him punch through a wall after one such incident, and idly wondered if he was subconsciously opening an inner celestial gate.

Shikamaru had introduced Naruto to the art of strategy in a way he had never considered. They had played Go, a traditional game, which Naruto was kind of ashamed to admit that he had gotten his butt whooped by the pineapple haired boy. Not that he would let that stop him however. Once he had learned the rules, he had continued to play with Shikamaru, and was pleased to admit that while he still got his butt kicked, it took the Nara a few more turns to do it. He had started using the strategies that he gained from that game to use in his ninja tactics. He had practiced forming a few Earth Bunshin and using them as pieces to surround the enemy and cut off their escape. It wasn't perfect, but he would likely get better with more practice.

Other than those friends, he hadn't gained much more than a bit of reputation. The others were either somewhat afraid of him, pissed at him, or just not interested in the boy. Though he did wonder why a few girls in his class would follow him at times. He could only shrug at that though, he knew that he didn't understand women, and probably wouldn't for a while, if he ever did.

During this time, he rarely got to see his old sensei's and was wondering if he should drop by so that Gai wouldn't wonder about him. The man had his own team now, but he still worried about his first pupil. After all, unlike his team, Naruto had to fight danger inside the village as well. It was with this in mind that Naruto had invited Kiba with him to see if he could find Gai and his team. Kiba's family were renowned as trackers, and Naruto was pretty sure that Kiba could find them if they were still in the village.

"Alright, so, do you have anything I can use to track them? Or are we just going to go hunting for them?" Kiba asked while looking at his friend.

"Hmm. Well, how about this?" Naruto asked while pulling out his sword.

"Your sword? You use that far too much for whoever's scent you want me to track to still be on there." Kiba scowled.

"Ok, something I don't use, but given to me by them, eh? Hmmm," Naruto scratched his chin as he thought, "OH! I know!" He exclaimed while pulling out a storage scroll from one of his pockets.

"Never thought I would use this thing. Go figure." Naruto said after opening the scroll with some blood and tapping a kanji symbol near the middle.

What came out was something that caused Kiba's eye to twitch. A green spandex suit was presented to the canine like boy, and Kiba sighed as he took the dreadful thing and pushed it up to Akamaru, so the dog could get a sniff. The little pup did so, and then started barking to his master.

"I know, boy, I can smell the stench of it too. It smells like pure man sweat." Kiba said, then sighed and sniffed the air, his dog doing the same. Both heads swiveled to the left and the pair took off in search of the team.

They ended up in a training area that was unfamiliar to both boys, since it was near to the Hyuuga household, and Naruto figured that it must have been Neji's idea to train here. They were able to hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh quickly, and Naruto nodded to Kiba as they headed that direction.

The sight that met their eyes was one that Naruto was very used to, but Kiba had been unprepared for. Gai and Lee had apparently just finished sparring, and after a quick succession of shouting each other's name, they were now hugging. Naruto had taken care to look away when the 'infamous' sunset genjutsu appeared, but Kiba was completely entrenched in the sight. Naruto noticed his friend's plight and cursed himself for forgetting to warn the boy as he walked over and placed his hand over Kiba's eyes. The animalistic boy quickly got over his shock now that the sight was blocked out and turned to Naruto.

"Thanks man, I think that my mind was frying or something."

"Yeah, no problem, it's my fault for not warning you about them beforehand. Gai-sensei and Lee can be kind of…unique. But you'll be hard pressed to find two more dedicated guys."

Kiba shuddered and said simply that he didn't want to imagine what even more dedicated people would like. The two boys started heading towards the other pair, and Naruto idly wondered where Neji and Tenten were at. He got his answer when a boy dressed in white shot out of the woods and ran across the field, passing the two dumbstruck boys. What followed his wake was a downright storm of weaponry raining from the sky. Both boys' eyes widened and they quickly turned and ran right with the white clad boy that turned out to be Neji.

"Neji, what the hell, man? What did you do to piss Tenten off so much?" Naruto asked while dodging a sword that had nearly cut him in two.

"I'm not really sure, Naruto. She came to training today in a new outfit and then asked me if she looked better in it. I told her that it looked to be a little more restrictive than her normal training wear, and she started attacking!" The pale eyed boy responded.

Naruto stared at the boy for a second, and he had thought he was dense with women. At least he knew to avoid questions like that, if possible. Looking over his shoulder, he finally saw Tenten. She was wearing a dress that was obviously meant for impressing the pale eyed boy, and not meant for training. This was now painfully obvious seeing as in her rampage, the girl had slit the dress on both sides of her legs, so that she could move easily. This unfortunately was the undoing of Naruto, and fortunately the end of her rampage. The two slit had risen to high on her thighs, and Naruto was able to see most of the girl's long tan legs. He had appreciated the view so much, that he had stopped cold on his feet, and was pierced by several kunai quickly thereafter. The sight of a now bleeding Naruto snapped the girl out of her righteous fury, and she quickly dropped to the ground.

"Oh my god, Naruto, are you ok? I didn't mean to hit _you_." She said, with a quick glare in Neji's direction before returning a much softer gaze to the boy on the ground.

"Oww." The blonde boy let out as he attempted to sit up, an effort that was quickly subdued when Tenten placed a hand on his shoulder and put just enough force to keep the boy from doing anything stupid.

"Don't move; you'll just push them in further if you do. We have to remove them and patch you up before you even try to move." Tenten said while pulling out a first aid kit from one of her many storage scrolls.

As Tenten began to work on Naruto's wounds, the other two boys stood idly by with a dumbfounded expression. They looked at each other, and then shrugged.

"Does this girl usually switch personalities this quickly?" Kiba whispered while gesturing over to the girl who was pulling out a kunai embedded in Naruto's bicep with one hand, and had her other hand ready with a medical wrap once the blade was loose.

"Hmm, only when it comes to Naruto usually. Those two are pretty close in a way. By the way, who are you?" Neji whispered back, neither boy wanting to draw the attention of the now docile girl, who might turn on them at any second.

"Oh, Inuzuka Kiba, one of Naruto's best friends."

"Ah." The boy responded, not noticing the glare he was getting for not introducing himself as well.

"So…you must be the Hyuuga that he mentioned then?"

"Yes, Hyuuga Neji."

"Ah." Kiba responded. He had a feeling that the boy was somewhat like the Uchiha, but to a lesser degree, probably because of his exposure to Naruto. No one ever seemed to be the same after meeting the blonde ball of sunshine.

It was at this time that the other two members of the team approached. Gai and Lee walked over to see what the commotion was. Lee immediately honed in on Naruto, and sped over to see the condition of his oldest rival. Gai looked, saw the damage to Naruto, and realized that the boy would be fine; his healing capabilities were astounding like that.

"Ah, my fine student returns to us. What happened to cause him to arrive in this condition, Neji?"

"Uh, he got in the crossfire of Tenten's rampage."

"Ah yes, Tenten's flame was extremely bright there for a minute." Gai proclaimed while getting into the good guy position.

Tenten looked up from pulling out the sixth kunai, this one penetrating into Naruto's thigh, and had the decency to blush from the words the two were saying.

"So, who might you be young one? I imagine that you must have come with young Naruto-kun?"

"Ah, yeah, the name is Kiba; I'm Naruto's best friend." The boy responded, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, any friend of Naruto must have a bright passion for his youth. You're welcome to join us anytime!!" Gai exclaimed, and Kiba started twitching.

Naruto who was still lying on the ground was snickering at the poor boy. It was almost worth getting stabbed several times to see the sight of Kiba breaking down from the power of Gai and Lee's eccentricity.

Kiba was pulled out of his stupor by a flash from his right, and he looked over to see Naruto putting away a camera and flashing a shit eating grin at the boy. Oh, he was going to have a long time before he lived this one down.

A/N: Hey guys, thank you for all the reviews. Sorry this one took a little longer, I ran out of steam when writing it up the first day, and ended up scrapping five pages of writing before starting over and ending up with this chapter. Sometimes that happens, sorry. I have unfortunate news though; my update rate is going to be severely decreased for the next week. My internet is being worked on right now, so I have to go to an internet café that costs money to post stories. So yeah, because of that, there will only be an update maybe every other day or so, because I'm not made of money, ya know? Alright, that's all for now, hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	14. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Naruto winced as the last kunai was pulled out, this one having been a little too close for comfort to a very sensitive location. As Tenten finished wrapping him up, he looked at her and was entranced by the sight. He could remember very well the sight that had frozen him and caused his current condition. The dress on her frame had hugged her curves well, and Naruto wasn't able to understand how on earth the Hyuuga boy had not been affected like he had been. Not to mention that once the dress had split and showed off her long athletic legs, it had been a sight that would probably have caused his perverted sensei, Kakashi, to get a nosebleed. Not that Naruto was a pervert, but he could definitely appreciate the beauty that she held. It was even more so apparent right now, since the 'rampage' that the girl had gone on, had caused her hair to loosen from the buns and was now streaming around her face, framing it very nicely. It looked good on her, but Naruto could see that it was impractical in battle. Her brown chocolate eyes still held a slightly worried look in them, and Naruto felt a warmth in his chest at that thought, she had been worried about him after all.

When she finished wrapping up the boy, she stood up and gave a hand to the injured boy, who now resembled a mummy more than a ninja. It was a sight that was hard to ignore, and even harder not to find funny. So it was perfectly understandable when Tenten started giggling at the now confused boy, which brought back the attention of the rest of the men in the area. They had all been keeping their distance from the girl after seeing just how much damage she could do. Even Lee was over with the other boys, his attempts to help Naruto had ended up hurting the boy even more, and so Tenten had ordered him away from her patient. When the boys saw the way Naruto looked, there were a mix of reactions. Kiba outright laughed his ass off, to include rolling around on the ground and pounding the dirt with his fists. Neji had a small smirk form on his lips, and his lips were twitching in the corners. He was obviously struggling not to smile or laugh at the situation. Gai and Lee both shouting about Naruto's flames and youth while hugging each other. Luckily for everyone's sanity, no one noticed the two green clad men because of the ridiculous sight that Naruto made with him being wrapped up like a mummy while scratching his head. Shrugging his shoulders, the boy pulled out a mirror from one of his scrolls, and took a look at himself. His own laughter erupted shortly thereafter. After several minutes, they had all calmed down, and the previously heavy tension in the air had completely evaporated.

"Alright, well then, now that we know your youth in still shining brightly, myself and Lee must return to the passionate bout of sparring we were having before your unfortunate endangerment, my bright student." Gai said while grinning, his teeth gleaming in the sunlight. Then he grabbed Lee by the shoulder and walked on to more fighting and hugging. Neji looked on as they left, then back at Tenten. Sensing that he wasn't quite out of the dog house as of yet, he decided to follow the green clad men so that he could avoid getting a pointy object poked in areas that he would rather keep safe. This left Tenten, Naruto, and Kiba standing in the clearing. They all looked on as the others left, looked at each other, and shrugged.

"So, what are you guys doing here anyways? This isn't where you normally train, Naruto." Tenten asked, looking at the mummified boy.

"Haha, yeah, well, actually, I haven't seen you guys in a while, so I decided to find you. That's when I dragged Kiba here into the search." Naruto said while pointing out his silent friend. Tenten looked over to the boy and saw that he was subconsciously holding his groin to try and keep it safe from her. She paused at that, wondering if she had really seemed that vicious. Shrugging it off she moved her gaze back away from the canine boy to his blonde companion.

"Aww, did you miss me, little Naruto?" She asked, teasing the boy for his height. He almost always got annoyed by that, and she liked to see him squirm a little.

"Very funny, and yeah actually. I did miss you." The boy said plainly. Tenten felt a stir in her chest at his words, and shrugged it off; he was like her little brother after all.

"So, how did you find us anyways? I don't remember telling you that we were moving over to this training area while Neji had his guarding duties."

"Ah, that's why you moved closer to the Hyuuga residence? I figured it had something to do with him being lazy or something like that." Naruto responded, while gesturing over to the pale eyed boy who was sitting on a rock while watching the other two men traded blows with one another.

Tenten snickered at that, the boy could be lazy at times, but that was mostly because he was just dreadfully serious about everything, so when he wasn't training or on a mission, he would rather not be there with the team. That was a bit of a problem, since it hindered the teamwork a little bit, but no so much, since Lee had started a rivalry with the boy, and Tenten had harbored a small crush on the boy for a while now. They were all bonded in one way or another to each other, and that caused their teamwork to build up slowly at first, but at an increasing speed once Neji decided to invest more time in the team.

"Yeah, well, since Neji is a branch member of the Hyuuga, he has to be on guard duty one week a month. It's not so bad really, we get a week off missions, and it only really requires him to be near the residence during that time period." Tenten explained; she knew that Naruto had already known about Neji's branch status from earlier conversations, so she didn't bother explaining that. Unfortunately, Kiba had not been privy to this conversation, and said something to the brown haired girl for the first time.

"So, uh, what do you mean by branch member? He's in the clan, right?"

"Yeah, but the Hyuuga split their clan into two houses. One main and one branch to support and protect the main house. They even go so far as to brand the branch members." Tenten said while looking at the boy. She saw that Kiba was quickly getting angered at the thought, and was wondering what the boy would say about it.

"That…That's just wrong! They dare call us beasts, since we use animals in combat. Yet they treat their own family like animals!" The enraged boy shouted, his family had long been a clan that was respected by most of the village, but had been scorned plenty of times by the 'Noble' Hyuuga. This bit of information was nothing new to the elder Inuzuka, but Kiba had not been privy to this, and was now thoroughly pissed at the stuck up pricks. It was with this in mind that Kiba said his goodbyes to Naruto and Tenten and went home to blow off some steam.

Neither of the other two were expecting this to happen, and Tenten felt bad because what she had said obviously had been the trigger to the boy's anger. She looked down for a bit until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry about Kiba; he'll be fine once he pounds something with his fists for a while. He's very sensitive about his clan, and doesn't take insults to their ways very well. Apparently the Hyuuga have been the snide asses they usually are, and thought themselves better than the Inuzuka simply because they are more feral. So it's not your fault that he's angry, the Hyuuga caused it." Naruto said, trying to comfort the girl.

She looked back up at him, and smiled for his sake. He was trying to be nice, and it was his friend after all. If Naruto said it was ok, then it must be ok. She decided that the next time she ran into the Inuzuka boy, she should made it up to him somehow. She looked back over at her team, and seeing Neji made her blood boil a little, so she knew that it would be better if she didn't go over and train with them anymore right now. She considered training with Naruto, since he was here, but he was a little too beaten up right now to engage in any sparring. Well, she supposed that she probably owed the blonde boy something as well, since she had used him as a pincushion, and she knew exactly how to repay that debt.

"Say, Naruto, you hungry?"

"Tenten, when in the entire time you've known me, have I not been hungry?" The boy asked, while putting his hands behind his head.

"Well, I'd rather not be here right now, and I kind of owe you for embedding you with Kunai, so how about an early lunch? My treat." She offered, hoping he'd accept. Of course, she needn't have worried, and knew this as soon as his eyes widened at the thought of free food. Tenten suddenly worried about seeing her paycheck disappear into a ramen bowl and so decided to head him off at the pass. "But I get to decide where we are going."

Naruto's enthusiasm dropped a little bit, she would probably pick somewhere other than Ichiraku's ramen stand, and that meant no ramen. He felt his stomach growl however, so he decided that any food was better than no food. He nodded to the girl and felt his spirit lift when she smiled brightly at him.

"Great. Hey Gai-sensei, we're going to get something to eat, I'll be back after we finish!" She shouted to the man, who simply waved them on, figuring it was best if she had time to cool off some more. He knew that Naruto would be able to get her mind off things; he was very good at that after all.

In the end, Tenten had decided on a small sushi shop that was nearby and after she noticed that Naruto didn't want to go into the store for some reason, she decided to pick up a few to go boxes and go have a picnic of sorts. When she came out a few minutes later, she noticed that Naruto had gone to the other side of the street, and was trying to blend into the woods a bit, so as to not attract attention from any of the villagers. She idly wondered about that, and decided to talk to him about it later. She gestured to the boy, and they started walking once again. This time Naruto leading the way, since he knew a place that he wanted to show her.

They arrived in a clearing in the woods, one complete with a stream, a waterfall, and a small pond. It was beautiful to behold, and Tenten froze in the spot. She hadn't known about any locations like this around Konoha, and wondered how Naruto had known the location. It was an especially romantic spot, and Tenten mapped out the spot in her mind for later use.

"Wow, Naruto, this place is great. How did you find it?"

"Oh, I use this spot for training some times. The waterfall is great for chakra control training ya know." The boy mumbled out while dragging the girl over to sit by the pond.

The two of them laid out the boxes of sushi and opened them up to see all that she had bought. Naruto was surprised when he saw the amount of sushi there, he wasn't a huge fan of it, but could appreciate the taste that the food provided. Tenten on the other hand, liked sushi almost as much as Naruto liked ramen, so she had bought quite a bit. She had bought several different types of sushi, including different varieties of rolls, and had even thrown in a few pieces of sashimi just to mix it up. She licked her lips as they sat down on the grass by the pond, both dipping their feet into the clear water.

It was a very relaxing environment, and Tenten imagined that if she had gone on a date, this is how it might have gone. She looked over at the blonde boy beside her and watched at how he seemed to awkwardly picking at the sushi, like he was not a conneisur of the food. She found it quite amusing and continued to watch the boy. His blonde hair was shining brightly in the sunlight that seemed to have broken through some of the branches of a tree to the east. Ironically, it seemed like he was one of the only thing illuminated and she caught her breath as it looked like he a holy aura emanating from the boy. She snapped out of it when he started choking on a piece of sushi that he had plopped whole into his mouth, and she was back to seeing him as the same old Naruto that she had been training with for a while now.

"You know," Naruto interrupted her thoughts suddenly, "I don't know what is wrong with Neji, but you look great in that dress."

Tenten looked shocked, and then her self-doubt kicked in. "Ah, you're just saying that to be nice Naruto, it's ok. I know that I'm more of a plain, tomboy type anyways. Girly stuff doesn't look good on me." She said, looking down at her reflection in the water.

"What? Are you serious? You can't really think that, can you?" Naruto asked, his eyes wide, and his jaw open.

"Well, it's true, I mean just look at how Neji reacted to the sight. He didn't even notice that I was trying to dress up for him."

"You know. I've been meaning to ask you this for a while now." Naruto began, wondering if this really was a smart thing to do, "Why do you like Neji so much? He doesn't seem to like you in the same way after all."

"Huh? Oh…well, he's handsome, and he's strong. He's also really smart, and…uh…I guess that's about it, really."

"Doesn't seem like enough to me, do you guys have a lot in common at least?" Naruto asked, hoping for his friend's happiness.

"No, not really. He's way to proper for me, I suppose. I've never been really elegant you know."

"Why do you keep saying things like that? Tenten, you're very elegant, and beautiful. Sometimes when I see you going through a dance with your sword, or flowing through a taijutsu kata, you look like an angel to me." The boy admitted, blushing a little bit.

His blush was echoed on Tenten's face, and she turned her head so that he wouldn't see the effect his words were having on her. That boy always said things that made her blush. He just didn't see any reason to hold back compliments.

"Yeah, well, you're the only one that sees me like that." She admitted.

"Well then, everyone else is missing out on quite a sight. Any guy that had the privilege of dating you would be the luckiest guy around if you ask me. After all, you're intelligent, beautiful, and unlike all the other girls around here, you don't need to be saved all the time. What wouldn't a man like about that?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto…" Tenten began, her eyes watering. He truly was a great guy she decided, and hid her tears by pulling the boy into a hug. She let her tears run out onto his shirt, and the boy could only look a little confused as he rubbed her back.

After a few minutes later, she rubbed her eyes dry on Naruto's shoulder, and leaned back into her seat on the grass. She had gotten emotional again, and she hated that fact about her. She didn't understand why her heart would always start beating so hard when he complimented her like that. Naruto was just a little brother to her, right? But even as she thought this, her heart denied it, and she realized that maybe, just maybe, Naruto was becoming something more to her than a friend. His constant compliments, unwavering support of her, and his kind demeanor had worn down her defenses. She looked at the boy that she had always treated as a younger brother, since she didn't have one of her own, and started wondering what it would be like to date Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto had been completely ignorant of the internal debate inside of Tenten's head, since he had been having one of his own. Even as he was saying all those things to Tenten to comfort her, he had realized that he had meant everything. He did think she was beautiful. He did think that any man would be lucky to date her, and had even been envious at that thought of someone dating her, though he hadn't said that part out loud. He didn't want to ruin their friendship just because his hidden feelings for the girl were starting to become more obvious as time went on. He knew better than to think that she would consider dating him, since he wasn't handsome, intelligent or 'cool' like all the other boys who had girls attached to them were. Ironically, if he had voiced those thoughts, Tenten would likely have pounded him in the head and called him a hypocrite. He could only continue to support her like he always had, and enjoyed doing. His happiness would be achieved when she was happy, and that was all that mattered.

There was a heavy tension in the air after they both had finished their thoughts on the other, and it was silent until Naruto's stomach decided to protest the fact that there was still food in front of them, yet not being eaten. Both of them looked at his stomach when the sound erupted, then locked eyes with each other. Laughter ensued and the tension evaporated like it had never been there. They each grabbed a piece of sushi and started eating again, the whole time stealing glances at each other. Though both were thinking along the same lines, neither said anything. Comfortable with the situation, both enjoyed the meal, and wondered about the future.

A/N: Yay, more and more reviews. I'm happy that I'm getting so many nowadays, if was a little bit depressing at first when I only got one or two per chapter if I was lucky. To address a few reviews, I don't think there is any good mix of under powering or overpowering Naruto, since everyone sees him differently. I do know about Itachi and Orochimaru being so powerful at such a young age, and I don't really doubt that Naruto could achieve those same results really. It's just that the stories are little more fun if he has to struggle a bit. Naruto's character has always had the appeal of the underdog, though I think it was a bit ridiculous when he came back from training with a sannin and not being a lot more powerful. Another reviewer asked if this was truly a NaruTen, because of her apparent crush on Neji. As you can see, patience is a virtue; I was using the last chapter to bridge into this one. In fact, one reviewer, Narutomaniac, seemed to have read my mind, since his review was almost an outline for this chapter. I don't think that Tenten would notice Naruto right away, since he was younger than her, he would appeal more to her as the younger brother type. It took Neji being an ass for her to get over him and see what was right under her nose. However, don't think that the two of them are going to get together right away or something like that, true love takes a while to build ya know. Though some could say that I've had plenty of time to do that what with how many chapters I have already. I also had one review that pointed out a few flaws, and no, I don't really think of it as a flame, so don't worry about that. I admit that I probably did make Naruto's vocabulary too large for an eight year old, which was an oversight. The characters being OOC? Debatable, I think. Gai and Lee are in character I believe, and Tenten's character was hardly fleshed out in the series, so I'm kind of working with a blank sheet mostly. Naruto's character? Oh yeah, I'll definitely give you that one, but this Naruto had something happen to him to cause the change, so I claim writer's privilege on him. As for the rest of the people, I think that I portrayed them pretty well. As for the amount of detail, yeah, you're right about that, I would no doubt put more detail into it if I put more time into it, but I usually take a little over an hour to write a chapter (don't know if that's a short time or a long time, but yeah) and that point I don't want to write much more. One reviewer also mentioned his dislike of Kiba, and that they wouldn't get along well. I can only point out that canon Naruto and Kiba were somewhat friends in the story, along with Shikamaru and Chouji. They all escaped together from the academy. I simply took their friendship and built upon it. Umm, ok, this is a very long A/N, much longer than I anticipated writing, and so I'm going to end it here. Hope you all liked the chapter, and I'll try to write more to make up for the longer update times, but it will more likely be two chapters posted than a longer chapter. We'll see.


	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

A gentle breeze blew in the air, ruffling the spikes of Naruto's blonde hair. It was a nice pleasant day. The sun was shining, the temperature was just right, and the birds were chirping away. It was quite a difference from the raging storm that had enveloped the village in darkness early in the afternoon the day before. It had also been an amazing display however, with bright flashes of lightning, and winds that blown trees almost completely over. Naruto had wondered idly if it was more likely that his rundown apartment would be blown away by the wind or drowned out by the few leaks that his roof had formed in the heavy downpour. Neither had happened luckily, and Naruto had finally gotten to go to sleep late in the night.

None of this was on his mind however while he continued his walk down the street. He had a lot of thoughts on his mind, so he wasn't really paying that much attention to where he was going, letting his body go through the motions on auto-pilot. His thoughts were jumbled and spread across the board, not really focusing or centering on anything. Or rather, maybe he was focusing on too many things. It was so confusing to describe that it only confused him more.

One thing he had on his mind was the academy. He had been going there for two weeks, and while a few classes interested him, some of them bored him to death. He didn't want to learn about how to fluctuate his chakra, or do the simple exercises the class had to do. He had learned about both of those a while back, and yet the soon to be graduates were going over the exercises. He seriously wanted to have a talk with the old man about how crappy the academy was. How could any of the ninja hopefuls survive on the outside with such minimal training? He didn't stop to consider that his training had been specific because of the threat to his life, not because he was about to become a ninja. Nonetheless, the academy's training was crap and Naruto knew it. That was one thing on his mind; he just had to figure out a way to get the old man to change it up. Well, if he didn't change it up, maybe Naruto would have to become Hokage just to do so. Of course, Naruto cringed a little at that thought. He had seen what the old man did everyday, which was signing mountains of paperwork. Why anyone would want that job was beyond him. There was the respect, sure, and the benefit of getting to decide and rule the whole ninja village. Actually, come to think of it, maybe it wasn't THAT bad after all. Naruto decided he would have to think about it, but for now he would be comfortable just being one of the strongest in the village.

His thoughts were also revolving around certain developments that had occurred after his spar with Sasuke. After the spar, several girls had developed a habit of following him, and giggling when he passed them. While he didn't understand women very well in general, he did notice that similar things happened to the Uchiha. The difference was that the Uchiha didn't seem to be bothered by it. While the most logical and easiest method to get the answer he wanted would be to approach Sasuke and ask him about it, Naruto's pride wouldn't allow him to do that. In order to get an answer from the Uchiha bastard, he would have to grovel and put the Uchiha back on his pedestal. The same pedestal that Naruto had drop-kicked out of the country in their spar. He wasn't about to go through all that unless it turned out to be a life or death situation. The only other option he had was to approach one of the girls in his class and ask about the behavior. The best way to understand a woman's actions is to ask a woman about them. They tended to understand each other much better than any guy would ever be able to.

Of course, he could have also asked Tenten about their actions, since she was a girl as well. However, he had an odd feeling in the back of his mind that told him that it was a bad idea to ask her about other women. While he didn't understand the reasoning, or even where this feeling had come from, he knew better than to doubt his instincts, and figured on asking one of the girls that he had cordial to him. That immediately eliminated Sakura; she had nearly beaten his head in after that spar. It also eliminated most of the non clan members in the academy. Those girls seemed to be the ones with the strongest 'symptoms' in Naruto's mind. Hinata had been cordial with him, and he had genuinely enjoyed her company, but she stuttered quite a bit, and Naruto knew that this was going to be confusing enough anyways without his having to sort the pieces of the conversation together.

That only left one last choice, the Yamanaka girl, Ino. While she had originally exhibited signs of the 'sickness' directed towards the Uchiha, those had lessened since the spar. Naruto was hoping that she had found a cure for it, and was working her way back to being a healthy young girl. She hadn't originally been too nice to him, but when he became friends with Chouji and Shikamaru, she was dragged in as well. Not necessarily becoming a friend of his, but becoming a lot nicer nonetheless.

His final thoughts ironically were around the brown haired girl from before, Tenten. She had been on his mind a lot lately, and while he knew why, he was perplexed about what to do about it. He knew that he liked her, and he did already know her quite well. However, that was more on a sisterly basis, and that was not how he wanted to know now. He wanted to know the side of her that she would show to Neji, not that the boy appreciated it.

He also knew that if any kind of relationship was to occur, though that was something he could only hope for at that moment, he would have to do the legwork. It was traditional for the man to approach the female in these kinds of things. At least, that's the way all those books he had read about it had said. After figuring out that he had developed a crush on the girl, and not knowing what to do about it, he had spent a good amount of time in the library, searching for relevant material. There were a few romance books, but no real guides to dating, so the boy had pieced together what he could from the romance novels. His knowledge was shoddy at best, and he knew it, but he couldn't do much to fix it without approaching someone older than him, who wouldn't either laugh at him perversely, which Kakashi would do, shout about passion and youth, which Gai would do, or be too old for relevant new dating knowledge, which the Hokage was. He supposed that he could approach his new teacher, Iruka, but they hadn't become very close in the time that he had been there. The man seemed to be slowly accepting him, but there wasn't any warmth there either. Naruto had hopes for the man however; he hadn't been one of the many to immediately write the boy off. With no real resolution on what he could do about the situation with Tenten, he decided that he would just have to let things idle for now. Maybe he'd get lucky and he'd get a good teacher when he graduated, one that could teach him about that kind of stuff as well.

His wandering thoughts had provided enough time for his body to slowly but surely walk the path to the academy. He sighed in resignation, he had been able to sort his thoughts somewhat, but had a feeling that things in the academy were likely to add more problems for him to solve. As he walked into the clearing surrounding the academy, his suspicions were confirmed. He had come at his usual time, which was about ten minutes before class started. Some people came earlier than him, and few came later, but that was pretty much when most people arrived. However this morning, when we walked past the outside wall, he noticed that no one was around. He wondered about that, it was odd for him to be the first there when he hadn't arrived too quickly. Taking a look at the door, he saw a note attached to it, and figured that the note had to correspond to the reason why no one was outside. Walking up to the note, he read the message written on it quickly and instantly understood the reason for the absence of other students. Apparently, the storm that had happened during the night had caused the roof to fall over a storage closet inside the building. While that shouldn't have been a huge issue, one of the tiles had broken a main water line inside and the floor had flooded. The academy was going to be closed for the day, so that they could clean up the mess. The roof would take longer than that to fix, but they couldn't delay the classes more than necessary. Naruto silently cheered that the academy had been the one to suffer damage instead of his apartment.

Unfortunately, this left Naruto with nothing to do for the rest of the day, and he had idly hoped to draw his thoughts away from their wandering by going to the academy. With nothing else to do, Naruto decided to act on one of his earlier thoughts, and headed off toward the Hokage's tower. He didn't know if the old man would listen to his criticism, but figured that it would at least shave some time off his day. With a sense of purpose filling him, he smiled for the first time that day, and walked with his back a little straighter than it had been beforehand.

After several blocks, he arrived in front of the tower, and nodding to himself, headed through door leading in. He entered into a small atrium, with seats lined up on the sides, and display on the far wall that included a map of the village, along with an index of relevant locations in the tower for whatever the visitor might need. He didn't need to look upon the map to know his way to the Hokage's office, since he had been there quite a few times in his life. He bypassed a few people sitting there and conversing, and he idly glanced to see who was in the tower today. There were a few civilian villagers, probably there to place complaints or to request simple missions. He also noticed a ninja team exiting out of one of the hallways, and he figured that they had just gotten a mission from their slightly hurried look. He headed into a more secure looking hallway and walked up a set of stairs. At the top was a pair of Chuunin guards, but they didn't give him any hassle, he had been there often enough. There main job was to stop any civilians or enemy ninja. Though the thought of an enemy ninja invading the Hokage's tower was ridiculous to Naruto, that kind of infiltration would require the perpetrator to get inside the village, pass all the ninja patrols inside the village, and breach the tower itself. Perhaps a ninja resident to the village could do it, buy why would they want to?

He walked down the more militaristic hallway, and felt a slight swell of pride in the knowledge that he was probably one of a very select few in the academy that had been here. Most of them had only met the Hokage face to face once, and that was a standard meeting that the old man set up for each new class. It was a highlight of the new class, and the old man seemed to thoroughly enjoy it as well.

Naruto passed several doors that led to the offices of several important but less glorified jobs that ninjas held. After all, desk jobs were required as well as front line fighters. Most of the people working in those jobs however, were ninjas that couldn't hack it during missions, and had requested less dangerous work. The office that the council met in was also down this hallway, but Naruto had never been in there.

At the end of the hallway was his destination however, so Naruto honed in on it and quickened his steps up to the secretary who sat behind a desk situated to the right of the door to the Hokage's office. The woman there was not one of Naruto's favorite people in the world, since she looked down upon him. In fact, she had tried to forbid him from seeing the old man before, but that had been shot down quickly when the Hokage had caught wind of it and had a conversation with the young lady. People said she had never been so pale in her life before. Naruto had not had too much trouble with the lady after that incident, he would usually just have to wait forever to get inside to talk to the old man, no matter if he wasn't busy or not. It was annoying, but Naruto had dealt with worse after all.

Naruto had a pleasant surprise however as he walked up to the desk. Just as he was about to open his mouth to address the secretary, the door had opened and the Hokage had walked out with a younger man beside him. The man had long black hair, and was quite tall, wearing his formal kimono quite elegantly. However the most striking part of the man were his pale lavender eyes, which marked him as a Hyuuga.

"Thank you for your visit Hiashi-san, I'm glad you came to me about the issue."

"Of course, Hokage-sama, you should have been informed earlier, but it slipped through the cracks I'm afraid. My apologies for that."

"I understand, your responsibilities as clan head are almost similar to my own you know."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama, by your leave." The tall man now identified as Hyuuga Hiashi said before bowing to the Hokage and making his way past Naruto. The man didn't even look at the boy and Naruto was happy for that. Most Hyuuga other than Hinata seemed to have a stick shoved up their ass, and Naruto wanted nothing to do with the family.

"Ah, Naruto-kun. I didn't expect you to come by. Is something the matter?"

"Oh no, old man, got no problems right now. Just got bored since the academy is closed today, and I wanted to talk to you about something is all." Naruto responded, scratching the back of his head.

"Ah, well, I don't think I have any appointments right now, so come on in." The elderly man said and held the door open so that the young boy could enter behind him. After seating himself behind a great wooden desk that commanded attention, the old man gestured for Naruto to seat himself in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Naruto happily obliged and sat down lazily.

"So then, what do you wish to talk about? I trust things are going well with your training, and you're not here to complain about that."

"Oh no, training is great, pretty soon I'll be able to beat you in a match!" Naruto said while joking with the old man. He knew that it would be a long time before he could face "The Professor" as the old man was known.

"Haha. Well, I look forward to that day. Maybe you'll take this mountain of paperwork away from me." The old man laughed as he saw Naruto's face pale at the sight of paperwork.

"Ah, well, maybe not for a while then. Anyways, I have a question for you though."

"Yes, what is it?" The Hokage paid attention now that they were in the meat and potatoes of the conversation. Naruto had seemed a little nervous about the subject, so the Hokage had decided to grease the wheels first.

"Well…why is it that the academy sucks?"

'Well, that was blunt' the old man thought to himself, "What exactly do you mean by that, Naruto?"

"Well, the academy is supposed to prep us for being ninjas, right? But the amount of actual training there is…pathetic, really. I mean, seriously, I came in and completely owned the top student in the academy. A proclaimed 'genius' by their standards. Doesn't that seem a little fishy?"

"Ah, I see where you're coming from Naruto, but you have to remember that you had very individualized training, which accounts for your superior growth. We generally rely on the clans to train their members individually, and provide general knowledge through the academy."

"Well, that's fine and all in theory. But what about the people who have no clans or even the members of the clans who don't receive special training? I don't see why everyone else is below me in strength. The clan taught members should be a lot stronger than they are."

"Naruto, I admit that the system is swayed towards clan members, since those are our most prominent ninjas. However, there is not much I can do about clan members not being trained more by their clans. We only have so many teachers in the academy, and many students. The problem is that there aren't enough teachers to individually train students. The ones who graduate also get to have individualized training with their Genin team, so they usually grow at that stage." The old man said, while lighting his pipe and sticking in his mouth.

"I guess that's true. But still, couldn't you maybe, I don't know, have some missions assigned for some of the teams to come and train the students? It would provide more teachers, so you could have more advanced teaching. Hell, old man, they only use the forehead leaf exercise for chakra control, which is by far the weakest of the exercises."

"Naruto. You do realize that most of the students in the academy don't have enough chakra to do some of the more advanced exercises, right?"

"Err…well, they should at least be able to handle the tree walking exercise. Anyways, the more refined control would help with another problem. You teach students how to evade, misdirect, and hide. Great skills for a ninja no doubt, but what about attacking or defending? Only learning taijutsu to do that?"

"Hmm, you might have a point in that last one. I'll think about it. Anything else?"

"Well, how about setting up scenarios to represent real missions? So that we can get a feel for what the life is going to be like. Some of the girls don't seem to realize what will be included in their life after graduation."

The old man puffed on his pipe a few times and thought about all that Naruto had said. It was true that the academy was lackluster, and it was in fact something he had been thinking about improving sooner or later. However no one had complained before with any logic behind their complaints, so he had decided that it didn't need to be updated yet. Why fix what isn't broken? In retrospect though, a few more advanced classes could have saved a few of the foolish young boys in the past that had attacked superior ninja and died for it. Maybe it was time for some changes. Of course, he'd have to get thoughts about it from more people, since Naruto's ideas were simple at best, and no doubt some of his trusted Jounin who taught regularly could provide some better ones. He looked at the blonde boy once more and wondered what other things Naruto would be surprising him with.

"Well, Naruto, I'll take what you've said into mind, and work on some viable solutions. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"Any time, old man, I'm just surprised you'd listen."

"Just because I'm old, Naruto, doesn't mean I think that I know everything. Sometimes the wisest things come from the mouth of babies." The old man said, with an air of wisdom surrounding him. Naruto was in awe for a second before he shook his head, said goodbye to the old man, and walked out of the office.

Once outside the tower, Naruto had one thought running through his mind. 'Wonder how many things will change because of this? Hope they involve more chances to beat down on the Uchiha.'

A/N: Alright, there ya go. One more serving of Naruto deliciousness. Yeah, I know that my excuse for the academy being closed was kind of lame, deal with it, couldn't come up with anything better at the time. I know a lot of you might have issues with the whole Naruto getting the Hokage to realize the academy sucks thing, but I like it. I will implement one of those changes in the next chapter, so look forward to that. I think you'll like it. Well, I don't really have anything to say about my reviews, except that I appreciate them, good reviews and criticism. I would prefer not to be flamed, but since I haven't yet, I'm not worried about it. I know that I'm not a perfect writer, but it's something I like to do, and you guys seem to appreciate it, so yeah. I know there was no NaruTen fluff in this chapter, but there will be a little bit involved in the next chapter. Not too much, but a little bit. Until next time, enjoy the story.


	16. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

It was two days after the talk with the Hokage that Naruto got to see what the old man had in mind for his class. He arrived at the academy early that day, and immediately noticed that everyone was positively buzzing with excitement. He wasn't sure why, they hadn't mentioned anything in particular in the class yesterday. He walked in, looking around for a familiar face to talk to. He saw his own little group hanging out in a corner, near the tree that held a swing that Naruto liked. He walked over towards them, and after a couple feet, he was noticed by Kiba, who waved him over.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" Naruto asked, pointing at the excitement of everyone in the little field.

"What? You didn't hear? They had a messenger come to our houses to tell us, you know." Kiba replied, looking genuinely confused.

"Huh, nope, no one came to tell me. Must have forgotten." Naruto said, faking a smile. He doubted that they had forgotten about him. More likely was that they had purposely not come to his apartment. "So, what is it then?"

"It's great, man. Apparently, we're going to be doing some kind of new training. They have a whole day planned out. We're going to be starting with an actual D-rank mission, isn't that sweet?!"

"Yeah, that's pretty cool. I bet we'll be getting the less risky ones though. Considering the time restraint and all." Naruto said, not realizing just how right he was. He would learn to hate D-ranks soon enough though.

"Anyways, after that we're going to be doing some kind of mock war battle, which will separate us in to teams, since we'll be in teams after we graduate. They're going to have the academy teams face off against Genin teams from the year prior. So that we won't know anything about our enemies."

"Makes sense, and sounds like fun." Naruto said, though he wondered idly if that meant he would be fighting against Tenten during this day.

"Finally, to top the whole day off, they're going to have a tournament to see who the top fighter is. Truly wicked, I think. It'll give you a chance to lay out the Uchiha again. That is if I don't get him first." Kiba boasted, laughing at the thought of either one creaming the emo boy.

"Sweet. Hey, how are they picking teams?" Naruto asked.

"Uh…I don't know, man." Kiba replied, scratching his head.

"They'll probably pick the teams based on complimentary pairings. I doubt they would let us pick our own teammates, considering that there would be too much commotion to be on the Uchiha's team. It's also unlikely that they would do a random drawing, since that might end up with unbalanced teams. It wouldn't be prudent to form a team with three of the strongest in the class and then have them battle a weaker team. Neither team would grow and learn from that experience. Of course, this whole day seems much too troublesome. I only wonder why they suddenly felt the need to implement these changes." Shikamaru added, his analyzing skills amazing the others once again. They could only nod in agreement with the boy, and wondered who the most compatible pairings would be.

They wouldn't have to wait too long though, since at that point; Iruka appeared at the front door and beckoned all the academy students into class. It took a few minutes for everyone to sit down and quiet down, since everyone was excited about the upcoming events. Once everyone had settled down, Iruka carefully addressed the class. Telling them all the events planned for the day. Not that he needed to do so, since everyone had now gotten the message.

He outlined the time line for the day and that piqued Naruto's interest. It appeared that for the first two hours of the day, they would be doing D-rank missions. He raised an eyebrow at that point, missions? As in the plural form of mission? How could they do more than one mission, especially in such a limited time? He wondered once again, what exactly these missions would consist of.

After the missions, they would be having a lunch break for an hour. Which was in fact a long break, but that also included the stretching and warming up time involved for the next event, which was the mock war battle. Apparently that battle had been marked as lasting either two hours, or until completion. Whichever occurred first.

Finally after the battle finished, either way. They would have a thirty minute rest, since undoubtedly some teams would likely have been more taxed during that exercise then others. Once that thirty minute rest period was over, the tournament battle would ensue. Each battle having a five minute time limit to ensure they weren't there all day watching one or two battles. It had been known to happen before.

With the time line explained, Iruka went on to explain that each event would be explained to them by their temporary senseis. That also brought about the most anticipated part of the explanation. The picking of teams. It turned out that Shikamaru had been correct in his assessment, as Iruka explained it. They would in fact be paired up with a specific pattern in mind. That pattern was to have one front line fighter, one support, and one tracker. This set up was not specialized, like some teams had been in the past, but was generalized, enabling the teams to do anything given to them.

"Now then, don't necessarily get too attached to your teams however. It's not likely that the pairings today will be the pairings for your team after graduation. Since we tend to get better results from specialized teams then more generalized teams. Although if your performance is outstanding, that might warrant attention. Basically, if you like this team, you better prove it to be exceedingly capable." Iruka stated. "Now then, let's begin. The first team, A, will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Aburame Shino. Your team leader will be Jounin Hatake Kakashi."

At this, several reactions were seen. Several women pouted, some screamed at the unfairness, and one girl, namely Sakura, squealed in delight. It was somewhat disturbing to see that some of the boys had also murmured slightly as well at not getting into the Uchiha's team. The rest of the boys, and Iruka, hoped that they were grumbling because of the Uchiha's strength, not his looks.

"Err…anyways, moving on. Team B will consist of Akimichi Chouji, Ino Yamanaka, and Hyuuga Hinata. Your team leader will be Jounin Shiranui Genma." This also garnered a lot of responses. Though most of it was from the boy's side. In their minds it wasn't fair that Chouji had gotten a team with two girls. That was almost like a dream. Chouji himself was saddened that he wasn't with any of his close friends, though he was at least on good terms with both girls.

"Team C will consist of Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Shikamaru, and Inuzuka Kiba. Your team leader will be Special Jounin Mitarashi Anko." This one didn't receive really that many responses, since none of those boys were considered really attractive to the female side, except for Naruto, but his fan club had shrunken when it was found out that he was almost completely clueless when it came to women. That was thanks to one Yamanaka girl, who had found Naruto's assessment of their 'sickness' to be too amusing to keep to her self. The main responses were the team members on that team. Naruto and Kiba had shared a positively feral grin, and Shikamaru had groaned and mumbled about troublesome idiots, but no one missed the slight grin he held when he was saying it.

Iruka had continued to call out different teams, and it wasn't unexpected that most of the no names in the class had ended up together. Once everyone was formed into their teams, they met up with their temporary senseis, and disbanded. Well, except for Team A, whose sensei ended up showing up five minutes later. He was being dragged behind the Hokage himself, and the team merely sweat-dropped at the sight.

Team C had ended up with a beautiful looking woman as their teacher. But they had quickly found out that she was dangerous in her own right when she had caught Kiba taking a peek at the quite obvious cleavage showing between the flaps of her trench coat. It had taken a simple snap of her wrist to toss a kunai at a speed which enabled it to embed itself deeply in the wall behind Kiba. It had flown through the space between Kiba's legs, and he had whimpered when he saw the damage to the wall. If she had aimed higher, he would not be fathering his own set of pups anytime in this lifetime. Once outside, the woman had drawn her team outside the academy and had them stand in front of her while she laid out on a log.

"Alright, brats, let's do an introduction. No useless crap like your likes and dislikes, just tell me your strengths and weaknesses, then we can go get your first exciting mission." She said, smirking at the end.

"Err…Alright, well I'm Inuzuka Kiba. I'm pretty strong in my clan's taijutsu, but ninjutsu is limited to ones that revolve around my taijutsu. I'm pretty sure that I'm the 'tracker' on this team because of my clan's heritage. My weakness is primarily genjutsu, since they really don't fit my style." Kiba finished, looking smug that he only had one real weakness in his mind.

Anko simply looked at him, and filled in the gaps for herself. He apparently was the macho type, and therefore probably had a bigger bark then bite. She'd have to see if he could back up his claim to really only have genjutsu as a weakness. With a nod to him, she looked over at Shikamaru, who grumbled what sounded faintly like troublesome before starting.

"My name is Nara Shikamaru. I can use my clan's shadow ninjutsu to stop enemies from moving. I don't have any strength in taijutsu, and my genjutsu skills are mostly biased towards recognizing and dispelling them. I'm the 'support' on this team because of the capability to stop the enemy from attacking."

Anko nodded at that, the boy knew his weaknesses, and knew his strengths. He was obviously more laid back, and likely to have a cooler head than the brash Kiba. If his mumbling from earlier had been any indication, the boy was also likely to be very lazy. He'd have to work on his repertoire though, only having one real skill could be disastrous if the enemy could nullify or avoid it. Finishing her assessment on the boy, she looked to the last boy.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I have a good repertoire in ninjutsu, having several elemental jutsus, both attack and defense. I also am pretty strong in taijutsu, having trained in it from a young age. My weaknesses include genjutsu, which I can only recognize and dispel some of the time, and I am unable to pull off jutsus that require advanced chakra control."

Anko was a bit surprised at that introduction. The boy was strong in both ninjutsu and taijutsu? Surprising for an academy student. Most Jounin had to instill another trait into the fresh Genin, who had focused on only one field. His glaring weakness in genjutsu was cause for concern though. He would likely need specialized training to overcome that weakness, and it would be prudent to put him on a team with a Jounin who could help with that. Anko made sure to write that in her assessment of the boy. What the students didn't know was that part of the duties of their teachers for the day was to make an assessment about the abilities of the students and make recommendations for the route they should take in their growth. This would help the Hokage determine the best possible teams, and advance the next generation correctly.

"Right, well then, you already know my name, and you don't need to know my abilities, since I won't be actually helping you during these events. Consider me to be an observer for the most part, though I will be giving the orders when it comes to the mock war, since none of you have any training that correlates to that yet. Anyways, it's time to move out, don't want to miss out on any of the good missions, right?" She asked, smirking again. That smirk was starting to creep the boys out, since they got a sense of dread each time that it occurred.

Since several missions had been sorted out to be used by the academy today, those mission scrolls had already been moved to the academy grounds. A booth had been set up in the front of the field while all the students had been in class, and there was now a long line of students and instructors waiting to be assigned their missions. The best part of this plan was that the academy students would be doing these missions for free, since it was part of the training. This meant that the village would pocket the small amount paid for each mission. That had been one of the strongest points towards letting the event happen in the first place, and many had revised their opinion on the Hokage after that council meeting. The old man could be completely devious at times.

Naruto's team had waited for ten minutes until they finally arrived at the front of the line. After being called up, the man behind the counter had checked their team off and handed three scrolls to Anko. She had taken them, shared a knowing smirk with the Chuunin clerk, and walked off toward the log she had been sitting on earlier. After arriving there, she opened up one of the scrolls, handed it to Naruto and watched with glee as she saw his face pale.

"So, brat, what do you think of your first D-rank mission.?" She asked sweetly.

"This…this…this is a joke, right?" Naruto asked, completely dumbfounded.

"What is it, Naruto? Let me see." Kiba said, and grabbed the scroll out of the frozen boy's motionless hands. Taking a look at the scroll himself, he paled as well, and looked up at Anko with disbelief written on his face.

"No fucking way! We got picking weeds as a mission!?" Kiba nearly shouted, which caused a few of the academy students waiting in line to snicker at the group's misfortune, while their teachers smirked.

-----------------------_Two Hours later-----------------------_

Naruto was pissed off. He had picked weeds forever, only to finish the back breaking exercise and find out the next 'mission' was to paint fences. He had nearly screamed in frustration at that, ready to raise hell if the last mission wasn't something exciting.

The last mission had been a slight improvement in the beginning of the mission. It was to retrieve a lost cat, and while that he seemed just as stupid, it had been quite a challenge to apprehend the cat. Naruto had idly wondered if the cat had ninja training or something, since it evaded way too well to be normal. It was at the end of the mission however that Naruto's mood had fully soured. He had been the one to catch the cat in the end, and it had been a shortly lived achievement. Right after he held the cat up for the others to see, the cat had quickly made mincemeat of his face.

After getting scratched a few times, the boy had decided enough was enough, and had pulled out some ninja wire. Needless to say, when the team came back with a cat bound in metal wire, everyone wondered about the methods of the team. Anko had positively loved it, enjoying both the sight of Naruto getting beaten by a cat, and then the punishment he had inflicted on the devilish feline. She had her own sour memories of that cat, and wondered idly if the cat was immortal or something, since it should have died long ago.

After completing their missions, Naruto had walked to the bathroom to clean his face, and rub some healing cream on his face. It would help him heal up sooner, so that he wouldn't look like he'd been beaten too badly when the other events started. All in all, his first experience with D-rank missions had soured his look on ninjas somewhat, and he wondered if this was the Hokage's idea of showing them what being a ninja was really like. Either that, or someone really hated him up there. Either way, Naruto decided that D-rank missions would be the bane of his upcoming life.

A/N: Yay, another chapter done. I know that I got mixed reviews on the last chapter. It was a filler chapter, I admit it, and I myself wasn't too pleased with it. This chapter is a little better I think, I tried to add some humor into it. I know that I said that there would be some NaruTen in this chapter, as well as Sasuke-ownage. However, I decided to extend this one chapter (which was going to be the whole day) into three chapters, so that I could get more descriptions going. I hope you all like the idea behind this, and yes, I know that it vaguely resembles the Chuunin exam, but I'd like to think that I'm making it different enough to attract attention still. Next chapter will be about the mock war, and that one should be quite a read I think. I know that I'm not the best writer at fighting scenes, so don't flame too much about that. By the way, I might have made a mistake on Genma's rank, wasn't sure if he was special jounin or jounin, so I just went with jounin. Oh, on a good note, my internet is fixed, so regular daily updates will commence again. Until next time, hope you like the chapter.


	17. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Everyone in Team C had let loose a long sigh of relief after finishing their missions. That hell was over for now. For now being the key word, since they had to look forward to doing that stuff once again after they completed the graduation exam. It took a lot of glamour out of the job. This was undoubtedly the reason that the Hokage had made sure they all got a taste of it. Now though, the fun part would begin. As all the teams finished up their missions and returned to the academy grounds, one could see the positive excitement vibrating from all the Genin hopefuls.

Naruto had started tapping the ground with his foot not long after they had finished, and by now, he was sure, it was annoying everyone around him. He couldn't help it though; he was positively brimming with excitement. A mock war would no doubt have quite a few fights. He just wondered about how things would go. Anko was supposed to explain things when they got here, but she had simply told them that she wouldn't waste her breath, because someone else would be giving a brief to everyone.

It was around thirty minutes later when everyone had arrived and it was somewhat ironic that the last team had come in just before the two hour mark. Of course, this didn't help Naruto much, since now he had to wait a whole hour the event to occur. He looked around and saw everyone pulling out lunches, and looked in his bag for his own. It was quite unfortunate for Naruto however, that he had forgotten to pack his lunch today. _'Crap, Now I'm going to have to go out for lunch. Wonder if anyone else will go?'_ He looked around and saw all of his friends had pulled out lunches, including Chouji, who had a larger bag than everyone else. One might have figured that Naruto would go ask the kind boy for some food, since Chouji would undoubtedly do it for his friend. However, he didn't want to have to rely on his friends when it came to matter of finance, so he walked up to Anko, and asked permission to leave and eat.

"What? Fine, whatever brat, just make sure you're back in time, or you'll get to sit out while everyone else has fun." She responded, and then putting on a wicked smile, she turned to Naruto and started talking again. "Of course, if you miss out on that fun, maybe we can come up with something to keep you entertained." She smiled seductively, and leaned forward a bit, showing more cleavage then before.

Naruto knew immediately that she was teasing him, and trying to expose him as a pervert or something. So it was with incredible difficulty that he didn't stare at her chest with a shit eating grin, which was his first instinct. Maintaining his composure somewhat, he saw with some satisfaction that Anko had pouted at his lack of response to her feminine wiles. He knew that she hadn't been serious in the first place; she was the type who liked toying with people's mind. That and the fact that their age difference was enough to put any kind of relationship into an extremely perverse and disturbing frame. Nodding to her so that she knew he had understood her, he took off for the one place he knew he could eat fast and without hassle, Ichiraku Ramen.

He made quick time through the crowded streets; it was lunch hour for most people, so there was always a bit of a rush. Luckily, he knew that he'd get served quickly, since he was their best customer. He'd also made pretty good friends with the daughter, Ayame, of the ramen chef. Mostly because he regaled them with all kinds of exaggerated stories about his training. Ayame was the type who loved a good story, even if was an outright lie, and that played into Naruto's favor for making her his friend. He'd even had one incident in which she was being harassed by an older man, and Naruto had protected the girl. Her father had been sick that day, and apparently the guy figured that he could get the ramen and extra service if he tipped her well that day. She had accepted the tip, of course, but when the man had tried to put his hand up her skirt, she had screamed. Naruto had been calmly devouring his noodles until that point, but when he had heard her scream, he had jumped on the counter and drop kicked the man off his stool. That was when he had become fully accepted in the restaurant, so much so, that the old chef had kicked people out of the shop before when they talked badly about Naruto. Naruto sighed fondly at the memory, and opened the flap to walk into the stand. He wasn't surprised to see several people there, since it was lunch hour, but he hadn't been expecting to see Gai's team as the customers sitting on the center stools. Naruto grinned however, and walked forward and grabbed a stool next to Tenten, who had been sitting at the end of the group.

"Hey guys didn't expect to see you here." Naruto said to the team, and then directing his attention to the chef in the back, shouted, "Old man, three large miso ramen with extra fixings." The old man just raised his hand and got back to work. Naruto knew that as the signal that he had understood and swung his attention back to the others.

"Oh, Naruto-kun. Coming to fill your stomach so that you can continue to shine with passion and youth I see." Gai said, with a smile on his face.

"Yup, just gotta eat something quick before I get back." Naruto responded.

"So, you're in the class that is doing the mock-war battle, right?" Tenten asked the boy beside her.

"Yeah, but wait…how did you know about that?"

"Duh, Naruto, you're fighting older Genin right? You didn't think we'd be in the battle?" Tenten retorted, frowning slightly.

"Oh no, I thought you all might, but I kind of hoped you wouldn't be. I don't really want to have to face you after all." Naruto responded, scratching the back of his head.

"Aww, is little Naru-kun scared of me?" Tenten asked, pouting in a cute fashion.

This action completely threw Naruto for a loop, since she had both called him with a nickname that made him blush, and had pouted in a way that made him want to make her feel better. He caught his breath and regained himself before responding quickly.

"Yeah, of course I am. I'd like to have children some day, you know. That won't be possible if you take away my equipment first." He responded, covering himself just to emphasize his point.

"Like we need any more of you running around. One is more than enough for me to handle." She replied, and then froze for a split second, wondering if he had taken that another way. Luckily, he hadn't taken any other way than as a slight, and pouted himself. Crossing his arms, and looking away, before laughing with the girl and getting back to his ramen.

"So who are your most youthful companions, Naruto?" Lee asked, in between mouthfuls of ramen.

"Ah, well Kiba is on my team, along with Nara Shikamaru. Oh and we got some crazy lady named Anko as our leader…" Naruto said while turning to the boy. He was about to say something else, but was cut off when Gai had spit out the ramen he had been eating at the time.

"Did you say Anko? As in Mitarashi Anko?" Gai asked, with a somewhat pale face.

"Err…yeah?" Naruto was suddenly grabbed on both sides by Gai, who had gotten far too close for comfort, his face right in front of his first student.

"She…She didn't corrupt your youth did she? She is a very un-youthful person." Gai responded to Naruto's unasked question of 'what the hell is wrong with you?'

"Umm…No? She flirted a bit with me, but she was just trying to reveal me as a pervert I think." Naruto replied, scratching his head. He didn't notice Tenten freeze up next to him since Gai was still right in his face.

"…Your eyes aren't lying. I'm so glad she did not diminish such a bright flame with her un-youthful ways. Of course, if that is the tactic she tried against you, my youngest student, she had no chance, since you are pure." Gai said, once again sitting on his stool while grinning.

"Right. Hey, Tenten, you ok?" Naruto asked. Tenten realized she had been holding her breath, and quickly shot Naruto a grin as she took in some fresh air.

"I'm fine, thanks. Anyways, we best be going, we have a meeting before the event happens. See you later, maybe we'll meet in the battle."

"You got it. See you there."

"Just don't be surprised if we crush you." Tenten responded with a smirk as she waved goodbye and closed the flap behind her.

"Ah, hey! It'll be me that's crushing you!!" The boy shot out, but realized she had already left. "Damn it. Oh well, what time is it?" He looked up at the clock and nearly choked, he had about five minutes to get back to the field. For any normal person, that would be impossible. But Naruto was not ordinary. After a slightly grotesque sight of devouring ramen at inhuman speeds, Naruto dropped money on the counter and blasted out of the door and headed back to the field.

He arrived with a minute to spare, and was given several odd looks. Coming up to his own team, he heard Shikamaru mumble "troublesome blondes" and Kiba shouting out at him "Hey, you trying to get us disqualified or something, come on already."

They all headed over to where the teams were gathering in the middle of the field, and Naruto could see a tall man standing in the middle. Once they got closer, he was able to recognize the shinobi standing in the field. It was none other than Sarutobi Asuma, son of the old man Hokage. He had met the man several times, when he went to chat with the old man. He was a Jounin that had estranged somewhat from his father, based on their differences as shinobi, but nonetheless, they still talked occasionally.

When everyone gathered around, Asuma cleared his throat to silence the crowd. It worked wonders, since there was complete and almost deafening silence afterwards. He looked around for a moment, and then began.

"Alright, I'm supposed to be in charge of this next event. Which is the mock-war battle. The rules are pretty simple, so pay attention. The basic concept is that both forces will be in part of the forest we've partitioned off outside the village. The exact location of the enemy stronghold will be unknown, but it will be somewhere within a three kilometer radius. Each force will have several people with vital information. This will be in the form of a scroll that they are carrying. Now let me explain how the point system is going to work in this. If you manage to steal a scroll that is worth four points for your team. If you manage to capture an enemy, that is worth two points. 'Killing' the enemy is worth only one point, since you can't gain as much information from a corpse as you can a live enemy. A 'kill' will be declared by leader of the squad, and if you are said to be dead, then you can not participate any further in the battle. There is also a special character in each force that represent the Kage of their force. Capturing or 'Killing' this character will be worth one hundred points. The goal is to be either the first to arrive at one hundred points, eliminate the entire enemy force other than the Kage, or to have the most points at the time of the completion of this exercise. Each team will be designated before the battle as an attacking group, a defensive group, or the Kage's group. The roles of those groups should be pretty obvious, so I don't think I have to explain them. Go convene with your team and decided what you would like to be, though you might end up as something else if too many people want to be the same thing."

Naruto looked over to Kiba and Shikamaru and they nodded and walked over to a tree away from the others so they could talk about which they would pick.

"So, what do you guys want to be?" Naruto asked.

"Well, that should be obvious, attacking of course. It's boring to wait around for the enemy to approach you, and the Kage's team is going to be the 'strongest' team, so that will be given to the Uchiha." Kiba responded, with a shrug.

"Troublesome, I disagree. I'd rather be the defensive team. Attacking would be far too troublesome. At least with defense, we'd get to save energy by not running." Shikamaru added.

"Yeah, but if we're on defense, we'd be way too edgy about being attacked, and therefore wouldn't get to have any fun." Kiba shot back, and then looked to Naruto, "What do you think, man? Attacking or Defensive?"

Naruto considered the situation quickly. If they were a defensive team, they'd likely end up with one of the scrolls, and then be dodging the others constantly. It was mostly a hiding game if you were defensive. On the other hand, attacking had to work harder to try and find the other team; they would be searching for other teams in an unknown area. Neither option would be particularly easy, and both had good and bad points. Deciding that choosing attacking or defensive was more biased towards the personality, he knew himself to be the attacking type. He also knew that their team was one of the stronger teams, with two front line fighters in comparison to one. Kiba was designated the 'scout' of their team, but he was ranked right below Sasuke in taijutsu, so he was powerful in his own right.

"I believe we should attack. We're stronger than some of the other teams, so we'll have a more likely chance of defeating the enemies we come across despite the fatigue caused by the searching." Naruto started, and both of his friends couldn't help but agree with his logic, "…and I like attacking more anyways." At this, Kiba slapped him on the back with a smile, while Shikamaru grumbled.

"Well, I figured you would say that. Troublesome as it might be, at least the woman leading us will probably like that decision." Shikamaru said, shrugging.

"True, I wonder what kind of hell she'd put us through if we had picked defensive instead?" Naruto asked, and all three boys shivered at the thought. They had all seen what she could do with her kunai, and she had also scared the cat from their D-rank mission with a snake that had crawled out of the sleeve from her trench coat. That was just creepy, and each of the boys knew it.

When they approached her, she seemed to be clipping her fingernails with a kunai. It was a somewhat disturbing sight, and Naruto suddenly found himself standing alone in front of the woman. Silently cursing his friends for being cowards, he cleared his throat to get her attention. She looked up, and looked at the boy expectantly.

"We decided to be an attacking group." Naruto told her.

"Oh, I know. I already put your group in as attacking a while ago." She replied, lazily.

"What? But what if we had picked otherwise?" Naruto protested.

"Meh, you didn't. Right? Besides, I'm not going to lead a bunch of pansies around in the forest. Alright brat, call those other two over here so I can explain what our plan is."

Naruto looked over his shoulder and waved the other two over. Both looked like they'd rather not go near the insane woman, but they hurried over just in case she got pissy about them being scared of her.

Anko bent down by the ground and picked up a stick to start drawing. She outlined a square and then marked a circle on the right side, near the lower corner. "Alright, this is the forest. The circle represents our rally point, or base. The Kage group will be there, along with two defensive teams. Three teams should be more than enough to take out one or two teams that happen to find them there. The other two defensive teams will be located to the right and left of the base. They are both decoys, since neither team will have a scroll. However, they will be defensive, trying to draw their pursuers around until they can either lose them or find an advantageous spot to eliminate them." She explained, looking to see if they were still paying attention.

"The five attacking groups will be split into two groups of two teams, and one solo group. They are paired so that they can overwhelm any opposition that they run into. Our plan is to capture and kill when possible, but to continue searching for the Kage at all costs."

"Wait, if we're searching for the Kage, shouldn't we be heading out separately? And why are we going for the Kage anyways, we could just whittle down their numbers and win that way." Kiba interjected.

"First off, you all are a less experienced and weaker force then your opposition. It's likely that if you are in a one on one battle, you'll lose. That's why we are pairing up with another team. As for the choice to go for the instant win, since our forces are weaker, in a battle of attrition we'll most likely lose out to their superior strength. The best option for us is to do a kamikaze type attack, sending out all our attack force in those pairs. Once the attacking pair finds the base, they'll immediately set off a flare and attack while waiting for back up to arrive." She ended the explanation and waited for any questions.

"Um…who's the solo team?" Naruto asked, and all the boys paled when Anko grinned devilishly and pointed directly at them. Shikamaru once again mumbled troublesome and closed his eyes with a frown. The other boys knew that he was thinking now, since his hands had formed into what looked like a handseal, but wasn't. He opened his eyes a minute later, and nodded to his friends.

"Alright, now that you seem to have come up with a strategy, let's go. We gotta meet up with the rest of the teams and then head out to the field." Anko said and they started walking over towards the mass congregation of academy students ahead of them.

Naruto was pumped now, he would be able to finally put his skills to the test and prove his worth to the people who had trained him. He wouldn't let them down, this he promised himself. He wouldn't let his name tarnish their own, not after they put so much effort into him.

_'Now is the time. I have to put everything I have into this battle.'_

A/N: So, what do you guys think? I hope that by adding the different rules and various roles that I separated the event from Chuunin Exam's second phase. It still has similarities, and I apologize for the lack of creativity there. Although, on the upside, because of this event, there will be changes in the Chuunin Exam. To address some reviewers, once again I got requests for longer chapters. I've already addressed this issue, and said my reasons for doing short, but quickly updated chapters, so I'm not going to say them again. I thank everyone that provided various inputs on their ideas or feelings about where this is going. Although, on a lighter note, I'm starting to wonder if I should let Narutomaniac write this story, since those reviews have often been where I was going with the story. I realize that I didn't actually have any fighting in this chapter, but it took longer to explain the rules of the event than I had imagined, and I needed to provide a little NaruTen moment in there as well. Next chapter will be fully in the forest though, so you can expect some good fight scenes then. Well then, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	18. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

A quick breeze blew by, rattling all the leaves in the trees around the clearing. However in the clearing, the air was silent, almost like it was waiting with bated breath. There was no other noise in the forest, complete silence reigned. It seemed all the animals in the forest had realized what was happening in this small clearing, and either had moved out of the way, or were watching just as anticipated as the air.

Blonde hair drooped over blue eyes as the owner's head bent over, with tears in his eyes. How could this have happened? No one had expected this to happen. How could they? It was supposed to be a small mock war battle, and yet, it had.

_Tenten…_

The boy was shaking now, which had drawn the attention of the other four boys in the clearing. They had previously been glaring at one another, waiting for the opportunity to continue what they had been doing earlier. One pair of eyes was one on the blonde, wondering if he would be ok. Another was glaring at a pair of white eyes that seemed to be completely enraged, and only wanted to continue the battle. The last pair of eyes was also looking at the white eyes, but in a different manner. A question was one on those eyes, and one could almost feel the question in the air between those two.

_Tenten…_

Naruto's breath that he had been holding was let loose in a rush, as the blonde boy suddenly screamed out in anguish. His head thrown back and tears streaming down his face. The boy's hands had been clenched in fists so tightly that blood could be seen leaking between his fingers. His eyes shut as he continued to wail for a minute, no one interfering in his pain. When they opened again, the previously beautiful blue eyes that he held had transformed into a hellish blood red color, with a slit pupil. Those eyes bore down on the white eyed boy with so much rage and anguish that for a second, the pale eyed boy wondered if his choice to use Naruto's attachment against him was going to succeed in demolishing the boy, or demolishing himself.

**"You…You BASTARD!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!"** Naruto screamed, and then shot at the boy with a speed no one there could match.

_Tenten…_

----------------------------One hour earlier--------------------------------

Naruto was brimming with excitement now. They had arrived in the forest quickly, and were now entering into the area that would be considered the 'base' of their force. He looked over to the other teams quickly. He had not been surprised to find out that the Uchiha's team had indeed gotten the slot for the Kage team. It suited him just fine, since the Kage would probably do the least fighting. Naruto laughed at that, if Sasuke had thought about it, the Kage team would have been the one he should have least wanted to be.

Chouji's team had been slotted as a defensive team, which had relieved the two girls on the team. Ino had been worried about attacking and therefore messing up the way she looked. That girl could still be pretty superficial even now that she had apparently gotten a little over her fangirlism. Hinata had been relieved because even though she had been designated the 'scout' of the team, Hyuuga were expected to be incredibly strong, and she was not confident about her skills. Chouji had merely shrugged, a habit that he probably had picked up from hanging out with Shikamaru too often, and opened a bag of chips.

Naruto's team had been told that they were going to be advancing on the eastern edge of the forest, since they were the solo team. It was more likely that the enemy would be on the western edge, considering that Naruto's force was situated on the eastern edge, so they had given the western edge to the stronger of the paired teams. The weaker paired team had taken the middle course, which was as likely to have battles, but not ambushes and traps like the western edge. Naruto hadn't been surprised at the logic involved there, but had been surprised by Anko's acceptance of the strategy. Seeing as she had made them the solo attacking team, he figured she'd been itching to put them in the most dangerous course as well.

After get a heads up from the other teams, the rather filled 'base' nearly deserted itself as the teams took off quickly. Naruto's team had Kiba in the front, using his nose to help locate and enemy before they attacked. Along with Akamaru as a second set of eyes, they were the most effective pair for a person in front. Shikamaru came right after that, his ability to support a fight making him being in the middle the ideal location. He would be able to support if Kiba got into a fight or if Naruto, who was in the back, got into a fight. Naruto being in the back hadn't really a choice as much as a process of elimination. With those two already having set locations, it only left one for him. Not that he minded really, seeing as no matter where the enemy came from, Naruto had enough speed to get in the battle regardless of location.

It had taken five minutes of careful running for the boys to pick up something odd in the air. When Kiba had jerked his head and stopped running all of a sudden, the others had stopped as well, getting into a defensive crouch. Kiba had motioned Shikamaru forward and pointed at the ground, whispering something to him. Naruto was unable to hear the conversation, but from the gestures being given, he came to the understanding that a trap was in front of them. Naruto wondered idly about this, why would the other force go out of there way to put a trap on the side opposite their base? He supposed that it could have been exactly so that their force would wonder just that. Nonetheless, with a trap ahead, it was likely that the opposition had a team ahead. They hadn't had the chance to start before his force, so it must have been a very quick team or their base was in fact on the same side as Naruto's force.

Naruto looked at Shikamaru's face, wondering what he would make of this. Naruto knew that the boy had him beat in the intelligence side, so he quickly deferred most strategic problems to the other boy. Shikamaru sighed, pointed ahead, and fell back quietly to speak with Naruto.

"Ok, there is a trap ahead. It's a single layer string trap, but the string was placed in somewhat high grass, which hides it pretty well. Luckily, Kiba smelled faint traces of a human presence in the area, so they likely only put that trap down a few minutes ago. This doesn't stop our advance however, but we will be more careful. We'll have to go around this however, since no smart shinobi would place a trap on the ground without placing one in the trees as well. We'll move west one hundred meters and continue forward another hundred meters, then cut back to our original course. Better to skirt this then alert the enemy of our presence."

"Right, sounds good to me." Naruto replied and they set off again.

Unfortunately, luck did not seem to be with them, they were going by the book with the skirting around the trap, and apparently the enemy had expected them to do so. So it was with some small frustration that Kiba stopped again, and informed Shikamaru of another trap in front of them. This one looking a little more advanced then the others, since Kiba had smelled it, but had not been able to see the trap until Shikamaru had pointed out the spider thin strings in the air, which were painted to match their surrounding to the T. This trap had taken a bit of time, and it was far more likely that the enemy was nearby. Kiba was working on overdrive now, having placed chakra into his nose to amplify his already enhanced smell. He also loaded chakra into his ears, and was unpleasantly surprised to hear his teammate's heartbeats as well as their breath and small movements on the ground.

His nose picked up a faint smell from the north, and he honed in on it with all of his senses. He felt a chakra signature ahead, around fifty meters in front of them. Their chakra was either concealed or very small, but it had been enough for the boy to sense. Of course, only being fifty meters ahead meant that the enemy knew they were there just as much they did. Probably was even now watching the approaching team.

Shikamaru frowned at the signals given to him by Kiba discreetly and turned to Naruto. He signaled his plan to the boy, using the common Konoha signals that were taught in the academy. Naruto nodded, and then turned around and started searching in front of him.

Moving behind a tree as he searched, he formed several handseals and formed an earth bunshin as he went underground. The plan was for Naruto to get on the other side of the enemy, to pincer attack them. It would have been obvious if he had just taken off though, so he had searched behind them for the enemy and once he was out of sight, he took action.

Now that he was underground, the boy quickly started moving towards the enemy's location. When he was within ten meters, he felt the vibrations on the ground. One was apparently on the ground, but the other two must have been up in the trees, since he couldn't feel them, but knew from their chakra signatures that they were in fact there. He passed around them slowly, not wanting to set off their senses or traps. He knew he was running a risk, since his own chakra signature, while suppressed as much as possible since he was underground, could still be felt if he came close enough to the team.

Once he was past them, and around thirty meters behind them, he searched for vibrations from a tree. The wind was blowing when he had gone under, and if it still was, then there would be slight vibrations running through the roots. Feeling a tree in front of him, the boy went behind it and surfaced. He couldn't see or hear the enemy from his location, and knew that he didn't dare risk taking a look just in case they had a rear guard much like Naruto's earth bunshin was doing for their team.

He waited nervously. He knew in a straight battle, they would probably win. He knew himself to be more powerful than any academy student had a right to be, and Kiba and Shikamaru's strengths were impressive as well. However, in the situation he was in now, blind and deaf to the enemy, without any immediate backup, he could be in a serious danger. He just hoped that his team would find a way around the trap ahead of them and engage the other team. That would provide the most effective trap for him, seeing as he would be able to attack from behind and maybe knock out one of them before they realized his presence completely.

A less favorable situation would be that his team made it through and the other team fled from them. If they happened to go Naruto's direction, he would be able to hold them off until his team arrived. However, if they went another direction, then Naruto's maneuvering would have turned out to be completely useless.

The worst situation would be if they noticed him behind them somehow, and came en masse to take him out quickly. With Kiba and Shikamaru behind around 80 meters away, they would have him at their mercy for several seconds. That didn't sound like much overall, but considering that a kill could be made in less than a second, his chances of surviving unscathed were slim at best.

Fate it seemed, had a sense of humor… Not three seconds after he had thought about them finding him, his senses had gone on red alert as he rolled out of the way. He was lucky he had, since the tree behind him exploded directly after that.

Finishing his roll and entering a defensive crouch, he got to see his opposition for the first time, and thoroughly started cursing fate in his mind. Three people stood in front of him, each one a seasoned and strong fighter. Team stood in front of the boy, and he knew he was in for it if his team didn't arrive as soon as possible. Not that it helped too much, this was one team that Naruto knew, they wouldn't crush.

The Hyuuga boy had his eyes open wide, the veins bulging out the sides, and Naruto knew that he had made a tactical error coming to the surface so close without knowing who was in the enemy opposition. It didn't help that this team knew Naruto's fighting style intimately, so he would be in drastic states if his team didn't arrive soon.

Naruto realized quickly that they might not even realize his predicament, and decided to start the fight quickly, so that he could send a signal. He raced through handseals as he saw both Lee and Neji leap towards him, each in their individual taijutsu styles. He finished before they reached him, and brought his hand to his mouth to blow out some fireballs. "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!!" Naruto screamed out, loud as he could, while shooting two fireballs at the approaching boys, and one into the air as a signal.

Not having time to even wonder if the signal had been seen, he quickly dodged a hail of weaponry that Tenten had shot towards the boy. His dodging was short, because in the split second that he had left the other two alone, they had recovered from the blow and were already closing in with their attacks. Naruto's head snapped back as a blow from Lee arrived before the much more dangerous gentle palm strike from Neji landed on his chest. He would have to thank Lee later for that, because that would have counted as a 'kill' right there and then.

Taking the momentum of the blow as a chance to escape, Naruto let his head continue its backwards motion and jumped off with his left leg into a rough back flip. His legs were in position to attack as he rotated, but both of the other boys had simply moved to the side and continued their advance.

"Shit, where…" Naruto started, but was quickly cut off by a strike to his left arm by Neji, and the boy could already feel his arm going numb. This was not good, he could beat them each individually some of the time, but against all of them, he was like a sitting duck. Deciding that if he wanted to survive as long as possible, he'd have to avoid Neji's death strikes, he started blocking the boy's attacks as soon as they came. It wasn't a perfect defense though, since his attention on Neji allowed Lee to land more blows, and Naruto was taking a beating because of it.

It was with one particularly violent spinning kick from Lee to Naruto's side that the boy bent over in pain, having felt his ribs crack. Lee had never been able to control his strength, and Naruto knew that. It was a risk to take Lee's attacks, since Neji would 'kill' him, but Lee just might actually cause enough damage to really do so.

The inherent flaw with Naruto's plan, was that he only had enough time to concentrate on the enemies in front of him, and it was with a lot of pain that he felt several kunai puncture into his back. Tenten had taken the distraction as time to get behind the blonde and let loose a flurry of deadly blades. They had all been dulled down, so as to not kill anyone, but with Tenten's strength and accuracy in kunai throwing, they still managed to lodge into his back. Of course, at this point, Naruto was pretty sure that he was very near to being 'dead' and he hoped his team would be able to defeat them without him.

Luckily for the blonde boy, at that time, two spinning drills came through the air and sped towards the green clad boy. Kiba and Akamaru had arrived, in a very Inuzuka fashion. Naruto didn't see Shikamaru, but since there were no longer any more kunai attacking him, he figured the boy must have taken on Tenten. It made sense in a way, since the boy was more of a support type, just like Tenten. Now that his opposition had dwindled down to one, Naruto's hopes rose back from trying to survive to trying to win.

Neji was glaring at him, and had settled into a standard Hyuuga stance. Naruto knew that normally he could stand up to the boy in taijutsu, but after getting smashed earlier, he knew he would lose if he went that route. So instead, he went the route that the Hyuuga hated to fight against, long range ninjutsu attacks. Quickly backpedaling from Neji, he started flying through handseals. Neji had started following as soon as Naruto started backpedaling, and grimaced as he ran faster in order to stop the now slower blonde boy before he finished his handseals. It was meant to be though, since right before he arrived, the boy put his hands in front of him and shouted out "Fuuton: Kazebakuha no Jutsu!!". The effect was instantaneous, with a blast of wind emitting from his hands that blew the Hyuuga back a couple meters.

The boy recovered instantly though, and was nearly unscathed from the blow. Naruto didn't have anything to convey the wind, like a fan, so he hadn't been able to put any blades into the wind, all his chakra going towards pushing the boy back. It had provided an opening for Naruto however, as he flew through more handseals and with a quick slap to the ground, he jumped out the way, calling "Doton: Tsukeheki no Jutsu!!!"

The ground that Neji had been chasing him on rent open with several cracks, and before Neji had the chance to jump away, the ground opened into a deep chasm beneath him. Neji wasn't known as a prodigy for nothing though, and quickly adhered himself to the side with chakra, then leapt off and back out from the cleft. He landed softly, and looked over to see Naruto already going through another set of handseals, this one for a Katon jutsu. Neji realized that this was quickly turning favor, so he figured that the only way to beat Naruto was to break him emotionally. He formed a plan quickly as he got ready to dodge the incoming fire attack.

With a cry of "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu" An enormous fireball erupted out of Naruto's mouth and went flying towards Neji. It was slightly off center, aimed at the right side of Neji. Naruto did this so Neji would have to dodge to the left, and Naruto would be right there waiting for him.

Things went just as he had planned, Neji did in fact dodge to the left, and was met with a fist to the face for his effort. Naruto saw the boy sailing back towards the cleft, and worried for a split second, but knew the boy had saved himself last time, so it was fine. His thought process however, stopped shut, when Neji poofed in smoke, and turned into a startled Tenten. She looked around frantically as she soared in the air, and a splitting scream came from her as she fell into the cleft.

Neji was now standing on the branch that Tenten had been stuck on earlier, a victim of Shikamaru's Kagemane no Jutsu. He knew that Tenten would be ok, and from his position, he saw her catch on to the side of the wall near the bottom. Oh she'd be pissed at him later, he knew that, but the psychological effect had been produced, and now Naruto would believe he had killed her. This would cause the boy to freeze up, and then become enraged. Enraged people became sloppy, and he'd likely come in for a taijutsu attack finally.

Naruto's world shattered around him. He…He had killed her…Tenten was dead. No! No he wouldn't believe it!! That bastard had done it, not him!!! He would have survived just fine, but Tenten wasn't as skilled as Neji, and didn't know it was coming.

_Tenten…_

He…He would make the boy pay. It didn't matter that this had just been a small battle exercise, the other boy had gone way too far now. He would make him pay. No, he would make him bleed. He would run rivers of the red liquid and Naruto would force him into new levels of agony! Naruto's vision swam in red colors, and he concentrated only on one thought.

_**"Kill him. He hurt her. He must pay."**_ The voice in the back of his head said, and he couldn't refute the logic and was far too out of it to wonder at the source of it.

Naruto howled in anguish, throwing his head back as tears ran down his face. His fists clenched tightly and he felt the blood running between his fingers. He opened his eyes then, and glared at the Hyuuga.

**"You…You BASTARD!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!"**

A/N: Ahhh, now that was fun to write. I'm not trying to make Neji into an evil person here, so don't take it that way. He's using every tool around him, which is cold, sure, but Neji didn't de-thaw until after he fought Naruto in the exam remember. As it is now, he's fought Naruto before, but never considered the boy to be a dead last. Hopefully you guys don't kill me for making Neji do that. Anyways, the rest of the battle will be in the next chapter, don't ya hate me for stopping it here? I'm evil I know. I figured I had to have Naruto find out some other way about the Kyuubi, since he won't be getting used by Mizuki after the exam. This provides perfect opportunity, along with some possible NaruTen action as well. I actually started writing this chapter in a different way, and about a third of it done before I ran into a block and had to just scrap it and start again. Anyways, as for reviews, thank you for the compliments. Except for one review that annoyed me, because once again I was hounded for longer chapters…Moving on, I hope you like this chapter, and will be salivating for the next one.

Kazebakuha - wind blast

Tsukeheki - earth split


	19. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything copyrighted.

Everyone in the area froze from the intense killer intent radiating off the blonde and formerly blue eyed boy. His intent was so strong that Neji was frozen in place, completely unable to defend himself once the enraged boy attacked. His white eyes blinked in shock when he watched as Naruto shouted at him and then disappeared. Before he could even process that into his mind, a fist had met with his face in a very brutal fashion. His head snapped back and his body rocketed backwards to stay attached to the head. His movement was stopped quickly however when he smashed into a tree behind him.

**"Murderer, you shall pay with blood!!"**

Without pause, he was met with several blows, landing all over his body. All he could see was a human shaped blur moving in front of him. That and the eyes, Naruto would pause every second or two just to glare at Neji with those merciless blood red eyes. The very sight of which caused Neji to end up losing control of his bladder. Luckily, his shame was withheld to his own mind only, since the urine mixed with the blood that was running freely on his body from all the cuts that Naruto's fingernails, which had sharpened into claws, were leaving.

The blows stopped suddenly, and Neji barely found the strength to look up. What he saw was almost more terrifying then anything else he had seen so far. The female leader of Naruto's team was there holding one arm back, while Gai was restraining the other arm. That by itself was not so surprising or terrifying, but the fact that both were struggling to hold one arm with both of their own was just jaw-dropping. He had never seen Gai beaten in strength by anyone, let alone someone who hadn't even graduated the academy! That however, was what was happening now.

**"NO!! I WON'T BE STOPPED!!!"**

Naruto had been dragged back by five feet initially, since they had caught him by surprise. Now that he was set again though, he had dragged the two higher class ninja to the point in which he was only two feet away from the white eyed boy. If Neji had been calmer, he probably would have realized that now was the time in which he should make his escape. His current state only left him staring at the impossibility ahead of him.

Apparently not everyone else was completely frozen though, because a pair of green clad arms wrapped around Naruto's chest and he was being dragged back again. Naruto howled in anger, enraged at being separated from his prey. His red eyes were positively glowing at this point, and Neji knew if he survived this day, he would have nightmares forever about the boy in front of him.

_**"You mustn't stop now!! KILL!! KILL!! Bathe in his blood for what he has done to your mate!!!" **_A voice echoed in the back of his head, and Naruto felt more power enter into his body, a flood of chakra that was not his own, but he didn't notice or care about the origin. All that he knew was that he had three insignificant flies holding him back from his prey.

Everyone's eyes widened as red chakra started blasting off of the boy, circling around him in the semblance of tails. When one happened to pass through a branch and burned it straight off of the tree, their eyes widened to comical proportions.

_'What…What the HELL is HE!?!' _Neji thought as he watched through his byagukan the human inferno that Naruto had become. He couldn't even see the tenketsu in the boy's body anymore; he was nothing but a shining beacon of chakra that hurt his eyes to focus on.

Back in the Naruto-made ravine, Tenten had been slowly climbing out, putting one hand over another as she grabbed the surface with chakra. Her leg had landed roughly on a rock that protruded from the wall. Blood was flowing slowly down her leg because of the deep gash in her thigh, and she knew she had to get up to the top so she could actually apply some kind of tourniquet or field bandage. She idly wondered how the fight was going. She had been fighting the shadow user, and she wondered if Neji had been able to take him out quick enough to face Naruto again. Oh she would be having a talk with Neji once this was over with though, how dare he use her as a kawarimi!? Even though it went against the whole point of their being here, she hoped that Naruto kicked his ass for her. She had seen the terrified look that his eyes had held when she had gone over the edge and she smiled briefly. _'Maybe I'll treat him to dinner if he has put Neji in his place by the time I get back up there.'_ She giggled briefly, and continued her ascent.

It only had taken about a minute for her to finally arrive near the top, and she was able to hear several crashes and what sounded like a lot of grunting. A howl broke out over everything else and she froze from the sound. It was a terrifying sound, and she wondered if maybe a wolf or something had come into the clearing. Placing a hand over the edge of the ravine she pulled herself up and rolled onto the ground tiredly. That had been a bitch, and she didn't plan on doing that again soon. She opened her eyes and looked to the left.

Her heart stopped beating as she did so. Naruto was standing in the middle of the clearing, with Gai holding his left arm, Anko holding his right arm, and Lee grasping him from behind. Each one of them seemed to be trying their best to hold him back while avoiding the deadly looking red tendrils of chakra that were weaving chaotically around the blonde boy. Looking past him was almost impossible, but she managed to do so, only to see Neji half buried in a tree, bleeding from every place seeable. He looked like he was a half breath away from death, and was frozen in fear.

"Naruto…" Tenten barely whispered.

Luckily for everyone in the forest, all of Naruto's senses had become extremely sensitive, and his head snapped back towards her when he heard a voice he shouldn't have been hearing. His red eyes snapped open when he saw her lying on the ground, bleeding, but still alive.

Tenten nearly wet herself when those eyes turned towards her. She had never seen anything as terrifying as the glowing blood red eyes now focused entirely on her. She couldn't breathe, and couldn't move a muscle. Everything in her body and soul was screaming to run away and never come back. Before she could act on that instinct however, there were several poofs of smoke in the clearing, as a full three man team of Anbu showed up. Within a split second, one had gone to the front of Naruto, whispering something as he slammed his hand, which had five flames atop his fingertips, into Naruto's stomach. At the same time another Anbu had come behind Naruto and quickly chopped the blonde boy in the back of his neck, instantly knocking him out. Without another word to the other people around there, the Anbu grabbed Naruto's body and transported out of there once again.

What was left behind was several shocked individuals and a mass of damage to the surrounding area. Naruto's teammates who had frozen at the beginning of Naruto's rampage finally found the release from their bondage, and moved forward to help Neji out of the tree he had been inserted into. Gai went over to help them treat the boy, while Anko grabbed Lee and dragged him over to help Tenten. The boy had been able to react in the face of danger, but was now completely shell shocked as all the delayed terror came back to him.

Gai decided that Neji needed immediate treatment and formed a handseal before grabbing onto Neji's shoulder. They vanished in smoke a second later, and the others were relieved to know he'd be getting treated soon. Anko looked over Tenten's wound and whistled.

"You are a very lucky girl, if that gash had occurred about half and inch to the right, you would have torn right into a vital artery. Probably wouldn't have even lived long enough to make it up here." Anko told the girl, all the while applying a pressure dressing to the wound. She couldn't use any medical jutsu, so the girl would still need medical attention if she didn't want to end up with a very nasty scar on her leg, but she would live just fine until they got out of here.

Anko bent down and offered her hand to the weakened girl. Tenten was able to stand up wobbly, and was surprised when Anko turned around and gestured for the girl to get on her back. Seeing the question in Tenten's eyes, Anko sighed and said, "Look girl, Gai might have had enough chakra left for a transportation jutsu, but I expended all of mine holding that brat back. So we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way."

Tenten nodded and placed her arms around the taller woman's neck, and lifted herself onto her back. Anko nodded and wrapped and arm under Tenten's uninjured leg to support her weight. The injured leg was left hanging, but since Tenten was shorter than Anko it didn't drag on the ground. Anko turned towards the remaining boys in the field and clicked her mouth in irritation.

"Alright, look, I gotta take the little missy here to get worked on as well, so you'll be coming with me. Just try not to fall behind or I'm leaving you." With that said, she turned her head back towards the quickest route out of the forest and shot off with an impressive speed. Out of the three boys following, only Lee looked to be having no problems with the pace she had set. Kiba looked like he was struggling a little bit, able keep up, but now breathing somewhat heavily. Shikamaru looked like he wouldn't be able to keep up for very long; he obviously didn't train physically that often if his stamina was any indication.

Ironically, all were having similar thoughts however, not having to do with the pace at all.

_'What the hell was that all about? What…what is Naruto anyways?'_

---------------------------Meanwhile----------------------------

The Hokage was just lighting up his pipe when he felt the incoming chakra signatures of a few of his Anbu. He knew immediately that they were the ones who he had assigned to watching over the mock-war battle in case of an emergency. What distressed him though was that all of them were coming, not just one or two. He knew something drastic must have happened if the whole unit had come, which left the battlefield completely unguarded.

He placed the pipe back down on his desk in a small ashtray he kept for just these occasions. He focused straight in front of him, and he sent out a quick small blast of his chakra to let the incoming Anbu know that he allowed them to teleport directly into his office. He saw five poofs erupt in the office, and an eyebrow rose at that, there were only four signatures in the room. The smoke cleared quickly and he was able to see four Anbu holding a smaller figure with blonde hair. The head slumped over so the face wasn't visible, but the old man had seen Naruto enough times to recognize his clothing, and quickly stood up.

"What happened?" The old man asked seriously.

One of the Anbu dropped to one knee and started his report, "Sir, we were tracking several known to be rather hostile groups when we felt a dramatic spike of chakra. Considering the power and feel of the chakra spike, we knew that it was Uzumaki's, and we hurried to his location. We found him being held back by Gai-san and Anko-san, along with a Genin. Naruto was bathed in the Kyuubi's chakra, and he seemed possessed. I performed the five element seal over his own seal, and stopped the flow of the Kyuubi's chakra. At the same time, Crow rendered the boy unconscious. We left right after in order to bring the boy to your attention, sir."

"I see. Get up, Tiger. Tell me, what were the conditions of the teams in the immediate area." The Hokage asked, glancing worriedly at the blonde boy behind the Anbu.

"The team opposing the Uzumaki had the young Hyuuga in it; he was in serious condition, with several lacerations and probably several broken bones. The female in the group had a large gash on her upper thigh, and was lying on the ground waiting for treatment. The other boys were uninjured."

"All right, I want you to leave Naruto here, and take your team back to the forest. Inform everyone that today's events are over, by order of the Hokage, and everyone has the rest of the day off."

"Sir." The Anbu saluted before nodding to an Anbu behind him. The man placed Naruto on a couch that was in the office, and when that was done, all the Anbu poofed out of the room.

Once they left, the Sandaime walked around his desk and started some handseals. His hand lit up with five flames and he slammed it into Naruto's stomach, allowing the Kyuubi's chakra to return to Naruto's body. He had been informed by a medic before that because of Naruto's body having grown up with a portion of the Kyuubi's chakra flowing through his body at all times, taking it away would act as a poison on the boy, and could eventually kill him if he went without it for too long.

Naruto's body jerked and shuddered for a second, while the old man held him down. Once he had stopped, the Hokage pulled out a vial and waved it under Naruto's nose. The effect was instantaneous, with Naruto's eyes shooting open. They were still a blood red color, but the glow had faded away. As the boy blinked in confusion, his own deep blue flooded into the eyes, washing away the red like it had in fact been blood. The eyes slowly focused on the Hokage's face and confusion washed into them.

"Old man? What happened? Where am I?" Naruto started, his vision still swimming past a few feet.

"You are in my office, Naruto. I was kind of hoping you could tell me what happened."

"Umm…well, I was in the forest. We had found an enemy team, which turned out to be Gai's team. I was fighting Neji until he switched with….OH SHIT!!! TENTEN!!! IS SHE OK OLD MAN?!" Naruto shouted at the end.

"Yes, yes she is, Naruto. Don't worry; I'm sure you'll be able to see her soon. I'll bring you to the hospital personally as soon as we go over the details of what happened. Now continue." The old man said, with a smile of encouragement.

"Alright, well, after that happened, I froze in place. I thought that she was dead, and then I think I heard a voice in the back of my mind, and…well, after that things get really fuzzy. I only remember being really angry about something.

The old man sighed; it seemed that the Kyuubi had announced its presence in a way. So he had no choice but to inform the boy of his condition now. Hopefully he wouldn't hate him over not telling about this sooner.

"Naruto, tell me, what do you know about the Kyuubi?"

A/N: Well, there it is, the next chapter. Sorry about the cliffy last chapter, but I simply couldn't resist. I wasn't quite as evil in this chapter, leaving off with a small cliff, but nowhere near the one I left last chapter. Ironically, everyone seemed to both love and hate that chapter because of the ending. Anyways, so yeah, I decided to go with Tenten being scared. Don't worry, she'll get over it by the time she sees him again, but in the face of that, anyone would be scared. I don't know if you all will like the fight scene I put at the beginning of this chapter as much, since I couldn't allow the fight to go on very long. What with the two being there. If they hadn't been there, yeah, Neji probably would have been in a body bag, so I'm glad I put them there. Thank you all for the reviews again, I do seem to have a loyal group of fans who review, despite the much higher number of favorites and alerts, but I can't complain. I don't know if I'll actually have the tournament or not, but likely even if I do, it won't be in the next chapter, but maybe the one after. I know I promised Sasuke-ownage, but I kind of ended up writing it so that the tournament would at the very least be delayed. Well, that's it for now, see you next chapter.


	20. Sorry guys

A/N: Hey guys. I'm sorry to inform you all that I can no longer write this story. Recently my personal computer has died on me, and I can't work on the story when I go to the internet cafe because of time restraints. I apologize to my fans, since I know that a lot of you have enjoyed this story. I'll leave the story up, incase I can get back to it at some point. Though buying a computer over here would be a complete bitch to do. I appreciate all the fans I have, and I appreciate all the reviews. I'm only sorry that I couldn't finish what I started.


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